The Heart's Remains
by vernajast
Summary: YonKaka. The Kyuubi's seal has started to break after 15 years. Kakashi is the only one who knows how to reseal it. The cost of performing the jutsu is his life, but he plans to keep his promise to his sensei to protect Naruto.
1. Prologue

_Beta read by DyrraDegan; pre-beta by MoiyaHatake. Thanks for all of your help. _

_I hope you all like this one. YonKaka. Will be roughly 13 shortish chapters long; nearly complete. Note that the 'titles' of chapters are from the song "Winterborn" by the Cruxshadows; chosen after the fact, because they went so well. This is not a songfic._

_Thanks for reading. vj_

* * *

**PROLOGUE: With noble acts, the bravest souls endure the heart's remains.**

"…minato…"

It slipped off the boy's tongue with an ease he'd never known when the man was alive.

"…minato…sensei…"

Kakashi fisted blond hair as he sobbed into the white shoulder of his Hokage. His sensei. His…his…

"…I need you!" Something else never easily spoken aloud. In fact, it was the first time. And it was too late. "You can't…"

The man beneath him was dead. Kakashi knew this, as he knew the smell of a certain aftershave combined with the blond's sweat and shampoo formed the distinctive scent that was completely and utterly "Minato." Kakashi's nostrils were full of that scent, his face buried in the blond's chest that was far too still, too cold. Too still.

Too cold…

Namikaze Minato.

The Yondaime Hokage.

The Yellow Flash of Konoha.

_Sensei._

In the graveled, sooty road that led to Konohagakure, Kakashi knelt on muddy knees. His sensei's blue eyes were dead orbs set in so much skin and bone and nothing—_Nothing!_—that indicated the man with the easy smile and protective nature had ever inhabited that body. Unable to stand the emptiness that was so horribly wrong tainting those features, Kakashi looked away. He spoke instead to the sky above them, the grass, the trees. Kakashi whispered into the night: "Sensei, I promise…I'll…I'll keep him safe…I'll keep them all safe…"

* * *

Kakashi sat up in bed so fast that his dogs jumped and skittered around the room, anxious on behalf of their master. Pakkun appeared, standing quietly at the foot of the bed. "What is it, Kakashi?"

"Mmm..."

Pakkun's gaze lingered a moment longer, two dark eyes meeting Kakashi's mismatched pair without apology. Apparently satisfied, he disappeared with a nod and a small puff of wind.

Kakashi dropped back onto the bed with a deep sigh. It was the same dream—_always the same!_ He glanced at the clock, noted the time, and decided it was too late to chase sleep again tonight. With a grunt, he climbed out of bed, covered Obito's eye, and stumbled into the small kitchen intent on finding something that could pass for coffee and maybe breakfast.


	2. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1: We will give strength to those who still remain.**

Kakashi strolled onto the training field three hours after sunrise, his nose stuck within the well-worn pages of an orange Icha Icha book. He walked with a hand shoved into his pocket. His hair, usually simply "disheveled," was something closer to "a disaster area." His single exposed gray eye was puffy and ringed with a bruise-like dark circle—the only evidence of his sleepless night, though no one could see it behind the book.

"Kaka-sensei! You're late!" Naruto pointed accusingly at his sensei, somehow unprepared for the smack Sakura delivered to the side of his head. Kakashi lowered his book, just slightly, to level a bland glare at his charges. Really, he had thought the boy would learn, eventually.

And yet, a mischievous glint in the blond's eye made him wonder.

"Naruto, Kakashi-sensei's _always_ late. Every day. And every day, you point it out as if it's never happened before. Sometimes, I swear I could—"

"Enough," Kakashi muttered, slipping the book back up into its rightful position. "You two spar over there. Don't hold back.." He slouched over to a nearby tree and reclined against the rough, scaly trunk, letting his eyes fall closed behind his book. "But try to keep the damage to a minimum."

Sakura smiled sweetly toward Kakashi, but it became a frown when Naruto added, "Yeah, 'cause if you hold back, Sakura-chan, there's no way I can get strong enough to bring Sasuke back!" His yelled declaration startled a flock of crows, previously happily plucking insects from the grass at the tree line. They took flight amidst angry calls in Naruto's general direction and Naruto raised a fist into the air, shouting, "That's right! Run away!"

Sakura rolled her eyes.

Ignoring his teammate's obvious annoyance, Naruto strode past her and toward the area Kakashi had indicated. "Alright, Sakura-chan! Let's do this! I'm in a great mood today, by the way. So great, I'll even let you take the first swing! I—" Sakura's chakra-reinforced fist connected squarely with the blond's jaw, sending him cart wheeling and skidding to a halt in the grass near Kakashi, who smiled slightly behind his mask.

The jounin barely spared a glance at the boy, so used to their antics that they mostly went ignored. However, a sudden burst of dark, familiar chakra surged from Naruto's direction , drawing Kakashi's attention. Peering at the boy with his natural vision, the Copy-nin grunted, pulled up his hitai-ate, and exposed Obito's Sharingan.

"Naruto."

The boy was crouched on the grass, fingers idly trailing through green blades. Downcast eyes avoided his sensei and Sakura, instead meticulously inspecting the ground. The Sharingan spun, enhancing the disturbing red chakra pattern of the demon fox that was quickly surrounding Naruto. Sakura gasped as the chakra slowly became more viscous and visible without enhancement.

The sticky, sour taste of bile rose at the back of Kakashi's throat as the first tail of the Kyuubi emerged. Standing deliberately, maintaining visual contact as he edged closer to Naruto, Kakashi reached out to him, but withdrew his hand instantly. His glove was singed, fingers red and scalded where they had grazed the bloody chakra.

The boy let out a primal growl, arching his back, reaching and clawing toward the sky. On the edge of losing himself to the madness.

"Naruto!"

Kakashi rarely raised his voice, and Sakura jumped, a small yelp escaping parted lips, bringing her out of her panicked daze. She hurried forward to her sensei's side. "Kaka-sensei!? Why—?

"Sakura, find Yamato and Tsunade and meet us outside the village gates."

"Hai!" The girl was already in motion, the word yelled over her shoulder as she hurried away.

"Naruto…" Kakashi watched more chakra leaking off the boy, the nub of a second tail appearing beside the first. The chakra enveloped the blond like a second skin, boiling across his flesh, stripping it back in long, thin, peeling tendrils.

With a thought to his sensei and his promise to protect the boy, Kakashi grabbed Naruto, painfully aware of the looseness of his limbs and neck as he gathered him to his chest and lifted him off the ground. Kakashi grunted against the pain as the fox's chakra seared his arms, melting the jounin uniform to his skin and filling his world with the scent of charred hair and flesh. He concentrated his chakra to reinforce those areas sustaining the most damage and started moving toward the village.

Naruto's breath rasped in the Copy-nin's ear as he ran, the sound magnified by adrenaline-fueled senses. It pushed his determination to get to Tsunade and Yamato as quickly as possible, but he was unable to do handsigns with the boy in his arms. _...just to the gate...just to the gate..._ It became a mantra, fuel for his burning leg muscles, his desperate movements unaided by chakra for the first time in years as he was diverting all of it to maintaining consciousness and protecting himself from the Kyuubi.

"Naruto?" There was no response and Kakashi prayed to whatever gods were listening that the boy could be pulled back. The fully-formed second tail swished, brushing againast Kakashi's leg, forcing him to focus through the searing pain.

With a pop and the diffused scent of sulfur, Yamato, Tsunade, and Sakura appeared before the huge red gates of the village. Yamato rushed forward, steadying Kakashi by the shoulders as the Copy-nin stumbled and dropped to his knees beneath the stout muscled weight of the fifteen-year-old boy, shoving Naruto violently away. His arms and torso, ruined and shredded by the Kyuubi's chakra, had already begun leaking a bloody stain onto the road. Tsuande was already four steps toward Naruto when she heard a whispered, "Please…I-I don't know what set him off. The cloak…How many…"

"Still only two tails, senpai. Rest. I'm going to attempt to settle the demon." Yamato formed jutsu with flying fingers. A blue-green cage of chakra rose around Naruto who trembled, prone and fevered, and the red chakra began to recede. Peeling skin healed, eyes opened. Red, slit irises faded to azure—warm, and clear, and very much afraid.

"Did…did I…" The boy seemed unable to form the words.

"No. Everything is fine. A-are you?" Naruto turned toward the tremulous voice—_Kakashi-sensei!_ It was laced with pain, and the blood staining his sensei's tattered uniform hurt the blond more than any accusation.

"I'm sorry…I don't know why it…I didn't mean to…I…" The boy fell silent at the quiet look he received from Kakashi as Sakura set to work on the silver-haired man. Head diligently bent, shoulders hunched, a soft green glow spread from her hands and across his wounds. Kakashi's expression slowly relaxed; his breathing eventually evened out.

When Tsunade finished with Naruto, she stood, dusting off her hands on her jacket, and asked pointedly, "What happened?"

"I…we were…" Sakura grimaced.

"It wasn't your fault, Sa-sakura-chan," Kakashi managed between gasps.

Tsunade approached Naruto with her hands folded behind her back. Appraising auburn eyes met blue, and her inner-self winced at the similarity to another pair of bright eyes. Her words came out harsher than intended. "Boy, lift your shirt. Show me your seal."

Naruto complied, silently withdrawn and disturbingly cooperative.

She ran a finger along the faint black lines swirling around his navel. "Faded," she stated flatly, betraying no hint of emotion…in truth, a betrayal all its own. "Your recent struggles to control its influence, coupled with this involuntary, unprovoked emergence would suggest the Yondaime's seal is losing its ability to trap the bijuu. You've come to the same conclusion?" She inclined her head toward Yamato and Kakashi, who nodded in unison. "As I suspected. Naruto, are you able to stand? Good. Yamato, escort him back to his apartment. Post around-the-clock ANBU guards and remain close by should they need your talents with the demon. In fact, inform Iruka, as well. He has a way with the boy that might prove useful."

Naruto stared angrily at the ground as he walked away, trailing behind Yamato, his guilt at losing control, endangering his team yet again, weighing heavily. Kakashi supposed the boy could hardly be blamed. If anyone was at fault, it was his sensei. It was _his_ seal that had suddenly proven faulty.

_The seal is fading? _

He'd gotten a good look at it with his Sharingan during Tsunade's examination. The chakra at the center of the seal was red, not blue. It wasn't fading. It was breaking.

Leaving Sakura and Tsunade alone on the road, Kakashi managed a light nod of thanks and a half-smile just barely reflected in his eyes before vanishing with a pop. The kunoichi watched the spot on which Kakashi had stood, both silently wondering what he was thinking behind those mismatched eyes.


	3. Chapter 2

_Many thanks to DyrraDegan for the beta, and MoiyaHatake for the pre-beta. They keep me on the right path._

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**CHAPTER 2: Dry your eyes, and quietly bear this pain with pride.**

The musty darkness of the Yondaime's home enveloped the silver-haired jounin as he stepped inside. The Fourth had left the house on the edge of town to his student, his will made long before Naruto's birth, but Kakashi couldn't bring himself to live there in the empty, echoing silence that followed his sensei's death. His raw sobs broke louder on those few nights he spent in the house alone.

Kakashi had always planned to give the house to Naruto, but as Sarutobi, and then Tsunade, saw fit to hide his parents' identities after all of those years, the Copy-nin could only continue to hold it for the boy in safekeeping.

Aside from the thick layer of dust coating every surface, it was as if time inside the house had frozen, preserving the night the Yondaime died with a clarity Kakashi found maddening. The night his sensei left him and he found himself truly alone for the first time since his father died. It played over in the rotten blood stain on the hardwood of the entry floor—Kakashi's own. Muddy boot prints that marked his few, feeble steps after dropping the man's body just inside before collapsing onto the elegant rug by the front door.

The quiet rooms smelled of his sensei and Kakashi took a precious, selfish moment to wander through the house. Nothing could make him forget that scent, thick and intoxicating, exactly as he remembered it in his nightmares, his dreams. His mask was down around his neck, though he didn't remember removing it.

In the bedroom, he pulled back dusty quilts and sheets and buried his face in the blond man's pillow, recalling his trepidation every time his sensei convinced him it was _too late_, _too rainy_, _too cold_ to go home, and "why don't you just stay here?" and he would, sleeping in the double bed, side-by-side, Minato sprawled, all long limbs and blond hair, and Kakashi shoved against the wall, avoiding physical contact and wide awake, frantically holding a tight reign on his pulse, breathing, arousal. He feared sleep, that his dreams might betray him to the man he wanted more than he should. He feared being awake, that his conscious mind might do the same.

He remembered doing this before, hugging his sensei's pillow. On days when the older man crawled out of bed early to attend a meeting or leave for a mission, Kakashi had often waited for his chakra to fade into the distance and then rolled into the rapidly cooling heat on the blond's side of the bed. Shoving the pillow over his face, luxuriating in the scent, and jerking himself. He would come in seconds, desperately, into the palm of a trembling hand.

An older Kakashi was still gripping the pillow when he realized the same hand was halfway to his pants. The bed was cold. His sensei's scent was stale and fading. And there were things left to be done. Clenching fists and teeth, he relinquished his reverie and made the bed, preserving what little normalcy he could. Then, he tromped up the stairs to the second floor, to the upper corridor, past Kushina's bedroom and the room set aside for Naruto, stopping before the study at the end of the hall.

The door to the study creaked as he pushed it open, and a fine mist of dust particles billowed into the air. When the dust settled and he opened his eye, Kakashi's gaze fell on the windowsill where he nearly expect to find a miniature version of himself reclining against the woodwork, book in hand, surreptitiously stealing glances at his sensei as he worked.

With a tired sigh, Kakashi moved to the desk, fingers trailing over stacks of papers and mementos, photographs and notes, thrown about in no particular order. He recalled that final night and how the blond had been tossing pages aside as he searched for the right jutsu to stop the demon. Kakashi sifted through the same haphazardly stacked sheets and scrolls, moving each aside after careful examination, seeking the same.

Shifting a handful of ancient expense reports from a drawer to the floor, a gray box caught Kakashi's eye. The Yondaime's precise writing scrawled across the top: _Kakashi._

Only feeling slightly guilty for snooping—as much as it pained him, the man was dead and it did bear his own name—he reached in and brought out the small cardboard box, setting it on the desk's scarred surface. There were no other markings, and no traps or wards.

In solemn silence, he slipped the lid off, but let it clatter to the floor when he caught sight of the contents.

Gray and red eyes met two gray. It was a photograph, one of many in the box, and likely one that Rin had taken with the camera she always seemed to have hidden somewhere in her pack. "To remember," she would say, and then click the button, capturing "her boys" in various poses from sparring to sleeping. In this particular photo, Kakashi sat cross-legged on the ground beside his sensei, glaring at the camera while the blond sat back on his elbows. Instead of looking at Rin, he was watching Kakashi, and the Copy-nin memorized the odd look on the man's face before dropping the yellowing photograph back into the box.

Beneath the pictures were documents: the deed to the Hatake clan house that had been empty for years, his academy graduation form, his chuunin and jounin promotion forms complete with his sensei's recommendations.

He expected his fingers to brush the bottom of the box, but there seemed to be one last item: a folded piece of heavy parchment. With ginger movements and the lightest touch, Kakashi unfolded it—a letter—and began to read. The handwriting had a forced, thick quality that made Kakashi wonder if his sensei's hands had been shaking as much as his own, so much so that he had needed to press the nib of his pen deep into the parchment. Seemingly random doodles decorated the margin, a nervous habit the man fell into when he was trying to make a decision; meaningless spirals and flames were preferable to the pacing and the nail biting.

Near the end of the letter, Kakashi's hands were trembling so badly that he had to rest the paper on the desk to hold it steady.

_Kakashi,_

_If you're reading this, it can only mean one thing, and I'm sorry. I hope my death was of some benefit to the village. Things have gotten crazy lately, so, I wrote you this letter, just in case something happens and I don't get to tell you._

_Naruto will be born soon. They insist it will be tonight, tomorrow at the latest. And instead of being at the hospital right now, sitting beside Kushina's bed, I'm here with you. We're going soon enough, but she insisted that I come home and spend some time with you before she has the baby and things get hectic. It was a good idea, even if I'm writing this and you're just sitting over there reading. It's what we do, after all, isn't it?_

_I've always been proud of you, Kashi. It's something I haven't told you enough, though I've told everyone else. You were my student, but now I count you as my friend. I got to watch you grow into the man you are, someone I admire. Someone I care about. (Stop frowning like that.) I've come to trust you, to rely on you. I just wish you would open up a little more. Smile. It can't be healthy to keep things inside like you do. (Don't worry, though. I think I'm starting to get through to you!) You know I worry about you._

_Should something happen to me, all I ask is that you continue to serve the village as we always have, and live. Live, Kakashi; it's my final command as your sensei and your Hokage. If you're alive, I know someone's looking out for Naruto, Kushina, and the rest of the villagers._

_I love you, Kashi.  
(I said stop frowning. I should have t_—

The last line of the letter trailed off; Minato hadn't finished writing the sentence. With a stark flash of insight, he imagined his sensei bent over the desk, chewing his nail, occasionally humming.

Fifteen-year-old Kakashi had been watching the blond for over an hour as he wrote draft after draft of a letter. The teenager had spent the evening thinking, trying to discern his feelings about the child that would soon be taking up most of his sensei's time…wondering how Kushina had managed to get pregnant to begin with, seeing as how she always slept alone. He'd felt a stab of jealousy and immediately shoved it aside. After all, she was the only person who knew his feelings for the Yondaime. She'd even urged him to speak to the blond about it, but instead, Kakashi continued to watch the man from a distance in the peaceful quiet of the study.

And then, Jiraiya had suddenly transported into the room yelling about a demon...

Removing his hitai-ate, Kakashi rubbed his Sharingan eye and took a moment to gather his thoughts, ignoring the twist in his gut, fingers still ghosting over the yellowed parchment and the bold words. _I love you?_ He tamped down on whatever meaning his neglected inner child tried to attach to the phrase. It didn't mean _that_. It didn't mean anything. Kakashi's free hand gripped the wall, trying to maintain his balance under the weight of...everything. His fuzzy vision found focus on a gray slip of ripped paper lying near the edge of the desk. He knew that triangular scrap, though he'd forgotten its shape until he laid eyes on it fifteen years later: the formula for his sensei's jutsu.

The Shikihuujin. The Reaper Death Seal used to trap the Kyuubi within Naruto.

He couldn't say he was glad to have found it. The ripped edges caught at his gloves, his fingertips. The Yondaime's handwriting streaked across the paper, taut and heavy with adrenaline. There were no drawings; there had been no indecision. There had been no time.

Kakashi passed his Sharingan over the formula and used its inner workings to compare the listed motions and preparations with what he'd seen his sensei do the day he sealed the fox demon within his son. His eyes widened at the implications. The Yondaime Hokage, so desperate to save his village, had made a single mistake in the jutsu.

The Kyuubi would require resealing, of that he was sure, or Naruto and likely all of Konoha would perish.

_Live, Kakashi; it's my final command as your sensei and your Hokage._

Slipping the letter into an inner pocket of his vest, Kakashi mumbled, "I'm sorry...sensei," as he pulled up his mask and slipped his hitai-ate down. There was no indecision. There was no time. He resigned himself to disobeying the Yondaime's final order and disappeared.


	4. Chapter 3

_Many thanks to DyrraDegan for the beta, and MoiyaHatake for the pre-beta. They keep me on the right path._

_Warning for Character Death._

* * *

**CHAPTER 3: I am for you, though better men have failed.**

Kakashi had expected to dream. He hadn't expected it to be so real.

_The boy, a slight sliver of an ANBU, lifted the body of the Yondaime Hokage in trembling arms glowing blue with chakra enhancement. A choking sob broke from his chest, and then he went silent. Focused on putting one step, then another down the ruined street of their ruined village. Bloody flesh hung ragged across his back where he had deflected the demon's attack as it whipped a tendril of chakra toward his sensei. __**...sensei...**_

_They tumbled through the door in a mass of limbs and robes and pain. Blond hair brushed Kakashi's cheek and he was shocked that the scent lingered so strong even after the man was gone. _

_They lay half-in, half-out the front door and it was wrong, wrong, wrong. Kushina and the baby would be home soon and there were things to be done. Dinner...dinner to start, and tea. After dinner, they would talk; they liked to talk. And then Kushina would wink and say she was tired and disappear to bed and then it would be just sensei**...sensei**..._

_Kakashi climbed up off the floor and lifted his sensei's lifeless body. He kicked the door closed, took three stumbling, muddy steps, and fell again._

_**And this time**...this time he would **do something**. He would follow Minato to bed without coercion. He would take off his mask, his hitai-ate. He would reach out and touch and curl up against the man, basking in his warmth...but, he wasn't warm..._

_Kakashi's arms lay limp and useless at his sides, fingers numb, chakra channels burnt out. As darkness closed around his senses, he pushed, pushed with his feet and snuggled against the man's too-still chest**...should have told you...**_

He opened his eyes slowly, taking in his quiet surroundings. Village. Home. Safe. The dogs stirred, but Pakkun stayed blessedly silent, and he was glad for their company.

* * *

"Hatake, sit down! I am the Hokage." Tented fingers pressed against lips stretched thin in anger. "If anyone--"

"This is something I must do," he answered in low tones, nearly whispering, "I gave my word."

"So did I! Who do you think is supposed to be looking out for _you_?" Tsunade's hands slammed down on her desk and she glared up into Kakashi's single exposed eye. "_Always_ a brat. Impertinent. You should know you're too damned _valuable_ to use for something so—"

Wavering resolve solidified at the word _use_. "I am the only person alive who knows the jutsu."

"You could teach it to someone else!"

Iruka's face came to mind, the logical choice for many reasons, those mostly for his loyalty to Naruto. Kakashi uttered, cold and sharp, "No." His glare met hers, calling on years of practice, and they matched wills in silence.

Their contest ended with an audible pop, and the woman's entire body slumped, her sharp eyes dropped to the desk. "Fine," she whispered, the strong Hokage sounding at once vulnerable and broken and utterly unlike herself. Kakashi fought the urge to reach out to her. It was better this way.

A commotion outside the door drew them both from their internal struggles as the blond boy in question came barreling into the room. "What the HELL, Kakashi-baka?! You CAN'T seal the Kyuubi! The Yondaime gave his life to seal it the first time. Doesn't that mean _you'll die_ if you do it?! No way! I'd rather…I'd rather…" Naruto's volume diminished as he faced the somber mood of his elders, the two adults aside from Iruka-sensei to whom he most closely related.

"You'd rather let the villagers die instead?" Tsunade's softened the words with a melancholy smile and gently ruffled the boy's hair before poking his forehead.

Kakashi's steel gray eye narrowed and met the wide blue ones of his sensei's only child. "Naruto, you are correct. He sacrificed himself to seal the Kyuubi." The jounin swallowed hard, willing back the heavy emotion bundled into such an admission. The trip to the Yondaime's house had amplified his memories, his..._feelings_ for his sensei. Things he'd never admitted when the man was alive, the silence he could only regret after he was dead. They weighed him down, hurt worse than any physical ache. Kakashi couldn't imagine continuing to live like that. His fingers idly touched his sensei's letter, tucked safely into his vest.

Groping to escape his thoughts of the Fourth, Kakashi started over. "I've lived far longer than most of my peers. It's a fitting end, to die for the village and its _future Hokage_." Kakashi's curve-eyed grin didn't fool his companions, though Naruto smiled back through the pain, just as he had for years.

Kakashi cleared his throat before continuing. "Use this second chance to find Sasuke, Naruto."

"I-I promise, Kakashi-sensei." Kakashi turned away, his feet grudgingly moving toward the doors as he urged them forward, away from the betrayal that lurked just below the blond's smile. He only stopped when Naruto called out, "Hey, Kaka-sensei. I want to be there when you do the jutsu, and I want you to do it somewhere away from the village. If something happens…I…I don't want to hurt anyone."

Tsunade's eyes began to burn and she turned away from the all too familiar scene, differing only in that the roles were reversed. She remembered the young Hatake standing in front of the desk, leaning over it, begging that blond brat to let him come along. Of course, Minato could never say 'no,' even when it was the obvious answer. Kakashi had never been the same.

Kakashi would simply be renewing a pact with a shinigami, and would have preferred not to involve the boy at all, quietly slipping away to perform the jutsu, allowing the medic-nin to remove his body before Naruto ever found out. It wasn't a requirement that Naruto be present for the resealing; in fact, he'd been safely with Tsunade the first time. However, looking into blue eyes that tore at something deeper inside of him, Kakashi couldn't deny the request.

The Copy-nin sighed. "Fine, fine. Meet me one hour before sunset beside the gates."

He left Naruto standing in the doorway of Tsunade's office. The boy watched his sensei's back as he walked away, unashamed of the tears that fell from his eyes, uninhibited, flowed down whiskered cheeks, and dripped off of his chin to his chest, soaking his shirt.

_A world without Kakashi-sensei…_ He couldn't imagine it.

* * *

Naruto watched Kakashi's fingers and hands fly through the seals required to perform the jutsu. He didn't pretend to understand what he was seeing and only began to realize that something was happening when Kakashi's eyes met his own and the jounin whispered, "I'm sorry."

The blond boy clenched his stomach as the Kyuubi's seal burned and writhed beneath his fingers. The demon fox's laughter pealed through his consciousness. It enjoyed seeing Naruto in pain; his tenuous bond with the creature made this obvious. It mumbled ugly, dark words about Kakashi, and the Yellow Flash who sealed him the first time. About petty humans and their insufferable self-importance. And it continued to laugh as Naruto squirmed and groaned under its varied attempts to block the seal's tightening restraints.

The pain spread to his head and the Kyuubi-vessel dropped to his knees, still close enough to Kakashi to see what the man was doing. One moment he was standing beside Naruto, mismatched eyes wide with surprise, and then he was lying on the ground, face down in the grass and soil, the gentle light of sunset dappling his motionless body. Naruto sat still, frozen in place. _He's…Kakashi's…_

_Impossible._

"Kakashi!" The boy crawled over to his sensei, heedless of his own pain, gritting his teeth and wrapping his arms around the man. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is…this is wrong. You shouldn't have had to die. I'm sorry…I'm…I'm sorry…" Kakashi's tear-soaked mask and closed eyes betrayed nothing. "I-I..I'm Uzumaki Naruto and…and I always keep a promise! Kakashi-sensei…I-I'll find Sasuke! I'll s-save…"

He shuddered against the silver-haired jounin's body, collapsing across Kakashi's unmoving chest, exhaustion and pain overcoming his already fragile state of mind. As the first ANBU descended from the trees, Naruto slid into unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4: Promise me, they will never see the tears within our eyes.**

_Morning._

Light filtered in over his bed, attempting to penetrate his eyelids, but they were crusted over, cemented. Kakashi rubbed a finger over each eye, brushing away the crud and squinting in the brightness of midday.

Sitting up with a yawn, he stretched, languid and cat-like, and rolled out of bed. Three steps toward the center of the room, he paused. Everything seemed to be in order, and yet…a wary glance behind him found his sandals placed neatly near the foot of the bed. It was unusual, but not particularly suspicious since Iruka could have brought him home last night from…wherever he'd been…Kakashi's thoughts wouldn't focus and everything about 'yesterday' was hazy. Continuing his train of thought, Kakashi reasoned that Iruka, as his best friend, would have been the most likely candidate and the man was more than slightly obsessed with order.

Kakashi's eyes took in the pile of dirty laundry standing in the corner, the wrinkled bed, at least one muddy print on the floor. He could picture Iruka standing amidst it all, debating whether or not to tidy up since he was there, vein twitching at his temple, and smirked.

_Friends, heh._

The dregs of last night's coffee, stale in the pot, reheated well enough in the microwave—bitter medicine against the misty veil covering over his mental faculties. Toast, a staple, went down in three bites. He had other places to be.

A quick once-over his teeth and hair, a change of clothes, a fresh mask, and a final sip of coffee to aid digestion—Then, Kakashi was out the door, meandering toward the Hokage tower, the book with the stained orange cover hovering just in front of his face. With each step, his thoughts seemed to clear, another detail falling into place here or there, and he let his mind wander as he walked, re-forging missing connections in his memories.

He had tried to re-seal the Kyuubi. Had Naruto stopped the jutsu? The boy had the Yondaime's stubborn streak and his mother's passion, so it really was possible. What other explanation was there for his being alive, at all? Kakashi should be dead.

_Should be dead._

Catching a whiff of Ichiraku's ramen stand, Kakashi diverted his feet, following his nose. _I'll speak to Naruto, first. Bringing ramen should--_

The jounin paused mid-step and stared.

Stared.

Tried reason.

Tried logic.

Tried the Sharingan, which didn't seem to be working properly. The pain forced him to put it away.

The ramen stand ahead was not Ichiraku's. A bright green sign with red lettering proclaimed 'Mimaku's Ichiban Ramen!' and the woman behind the counter was definitely not Teuchi-san.

"Mima-chan…"

She was a short woman; the top of her head only reaching Kakashi's shoulder--when he was thirteen. Now that he was taller, it seemed her eyes barely cleared the counter. A pain in his head forced his eyes to close as she and her customers flickered in and out of focus.

Kakashi cast about for some kind of grounding, realizing there was none to be found. The entire section of the village seemed to have changed, _reverted_ to its pre-Kyuubi days. Just down the street from Mima's was the parchment dealer's shop, and farther still, the village's finest weapon smith.

_The village's finest weapon smith before it was destroyed._

Kakashi was fifteen-years-old again, an ANBU scout sent ahead to survey the damage the demon had done to the village while the Hokage prepared his countermeasures. He saw the bodies of people he knew, charred and lying in the street. The collapsed buildings of Konoha's forever altered skyline. His lungs clogged with bits of ash and debris, and he dropped to the sooty road, prone on wobbly hands and knees, his consciousness vacillating between what he determined were 'then' and 'now.'

"Kai. Kai!" Whatever genjutsu had been used, it was strong. Kakashi couldn't break it, and he was finding it harder to separate the fiction around him from the reality he remembered. He wasn't weak, and any other illusion would have fallen before his Sharingan immediately, but to be surrounded by those buildings, those people, to be reminded of everything he'd lost in such an immediate way...

Civilians passing him in the street found ways to skirt around the distraught ninja as he wavered on the edge of breaking.

* * *

He was falling into darkness. A darkness that bulged and writhed and threatened to spill over. And in his mind, Kakashi saw it all again--the events leading up to his death, the life he led before.

_The day he was born, the first time he almost died._

_The day he started training with his father._

_The day his father almost died._

_The day he entered the academy._

_The day he graduated from the academy._

_The day The Yellow Flash became his sensei._

_The day he became a chuunin._

_The day he signed the contract and summoned Pakkun._

_The day he almost died from a kunai that slipped between the ribs, a second close call._

_The day he made his first kill._

_The day Mother died._

_The day Father returned from __that_ mission.

_The day Father died._

_The day Obito and Rin joined the team._

_The day he became a jounin._

_The day Obito died._

_The day Rin died._

_The day his sensei consented to an arranged marriage with his childhood friend._

_The day he joined ANBU._

_The day he told Kushina that he was in love with the Yondaime; the day she confessed that she and the blond weren't and never had been._

_The day sensei died, Naruto was born, the fox was sealed, and everything changed forever._

_The years alone._

_The day he finally quit ANBU._

_The day he got his genin team, reunited with Naruto, and met the children he would be proud to call his Team 7._

_The day Hayate died._

_The day Sarutobi died._

_The day he and Iruka became friends._

_The day Tsunade became Hokage._

_The day Sasuke left the village for Orochimaru._

_The day Naruto left the village with Jiraiya._

_The day Naruto returned, and Kakashi renewed his secret vow to protect him._

_The years of training, chasing Akatsuki, chasing Sasuke, chasing Orochimaru, chasing his sensei's ghost. Always running after something just out of reach. _

It seemed much of his life was best measured in the line of precious people he had lost over time. In the disappearances that seemed a recurring theme in the disastrous existence of the last Hatake.

And still he was falling. Into darkness and cold...empty...alone again...


	6. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5: In the fury of this darkest hour, I will be your light.**

He was being carried roughly through the streets. Half-lidded eyes watched the gravel road pass by beneath his feet, moving though he never took a step.

At first, he thought to feign sleep, but if his captors were ninja, then they already knew he was awake. If they were civilians, they were in for a surprise. With a groan, Kakashi lifted his head. "Wh-where am I?" The words were sour and thick in his mouth and his breath stank of bile. He had vomited before, maybe even passed out. There are no memories to account for the last few hours.

No, there were…but they were terrifying. The _Great Sharingan Kakashi_'s frightened inner child turned his back on the memories. Instead, he focused on his captors, who hadn't answered. "Can you at least tell me where I am? The last thing I remember is being in Konoha and…" He figured it couldn't hurt to be honest. He was already at a severe disadvantage.

The elbow in his stomach wasn't much consolation. "'Course, you were in Konoha. Shut up. Fuckin' spy."

That word--_spy_--hit him harder than the elbow. "I am not a spy," he said calmly.

"Riiight." It was the same man, and that voice was familiar. His natural eye peered to the side, Sharingan clutched tightly closed. The men holding him were ANBU, though their masks were oddly blank. Sheer white porcelain shone like bone in the afternoon sun.

Kakashi thought fast, searching his mind for the right faces, ANBU he knew he could trust implicitly. In the voice usually reserved for making verbal ANBU reports, he stated, "Hatake Kakashi, Registration ID 009720, Jounin Rank, Konohagakure. Raidou and Genma will verify."

The guard who had spoken before froze, his larger partner nearly tripping. Both tightened their grips, squeezing deep bruises into Kakashi's forearms. He could feel them glaring, but there was something else. They _were_ familiar. The slight build of the smaller man, the way he carried himself held a sinewy grace that could only be..."Genma?"

The ANBU started moving faster and farther away from the village, disregarding his questions and comments, though he was sure the one he suspected was Genma was starting to blush under his mask. Kakashi knew a lot about Genma's past and he wasn't holding back, mumbling particularly personal information, desperate to prove his identity by any means possible.

They dragged him through the gates of the village prison, ignoring his protests, ignoring him completely, except to toss him into a cell. Ripping the leaf hitai-ate from his head with a vow to find out who he killed to get it, they locked the door.

Alone in the dark, listening to the mewling groans of the other prisoners, Kakashi shivered.

The small, cramped cell smelled of inhabitance, of feces and sweat and the rawness of humanity. Kakashi's heightened sense of smell had been trained for years to detect faint odors as well as an Inuzuka and it rebelled, magnifying them all. He barely made it to a vile corner of the room, doubling over, adding to its rot.

When he gained control of his stomach, he set about formulating an escape. The cells were warded, he knew, but every seal could be broken. Hours later, the evening guard arrived with his dinner, Kakashi was near collapse. The guard smirked as Kakashi limped over to the door to receive his food. The man's voice was laced with disgust when he hissed, "You can't jutsu out of that cage, idiot."

Kakashi was prepared to ignore the remark, but his eyes widened when he caught sight of the face of the man standing just outside his cell. "Kotetsu..." Kakashi blinked hard, his eyes fluttering in the dim light as he momentarily lost focus on the chuunin.

"Hey, how do you know my name? Spies…know everything…" Kotetsu muttered, brushing his hands on his pants as he wandered away.

But Kakashi was already centered on the chuunin. He had found his ground and called out to the one person he could truly recognized . "Kotetsu! Tell the Hokage that Hatake Kakashi must speak with her!"

He thought he heard a faint, "whatever, idiot," before Kotetsu was gone. Still, he held out hope. Kakashi thought he knew Kotetsu well enough to assume that he would at least mention it to Iruka. And if Iruka knew Kakashi was being held, there was no doubt that his friend would come to his aid. Somehow.

The other prisoners were laughing, and someone yelled that insulting the Hokage was probably not going the best way to get out.

He settled onto the lone bench to ruminate with his back against the wall, eyes closed, thankful for the distraction from the noises and smells and darkness of the place.

Why didn't anyone recognize him?

What was wrong with the village?

Was it genjutsu?

The Kyuubi?

Had he finally broken after deferring for so long?

Did he save Naruto?

_Am I dead?_


	7. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6: I've lived for these few seconds. **

Kakashi lay on his back staring at the ceiling of his cell. The other prisoners were quiet and he wondered how he had grown so used to the background sound of their presence that he actually missed it. The silence left Kakashi with only his thoughts, and for the Copy-nin, it was the truest form of torture. The bone-crushing clamps Rock was so fond of using, the mental domination Itachi had forced on him...they were nothing compared to the pain Kakashi could inflict on himself.

He would never forget that his Konoha cell measured nine by six paces. That there were forty bars across the door alone. The way the trailing crack in the ceiling resembled Sarutobi's silhouette. Anything to keep his mind busy.

"Yo! Get up, asshole!"

Kakashi raised a brow and let his head fall to the side. The strip of fabric he'd torn from his shirt at some point during the night to use as a makeshift cover for his Sharingan shifted, and he felt a stab of pain in his eye, already low chakra levels straining beyond their capability. The ANBU he still assumed was Genma unlocked the cell, his partner waiting patiently just out of range. There was no chance of escape--he was too weak--so Kakashi sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bench. Swaying as he stood, he leaned on Genma. Raidou--he guessed it _must_ be Raidou--came around to take his other arm. The pair half-carried, half-dragged Kakashi toward the village...and, hopefully, toward answers.

* * *

By Kakashi's estimate, they were still roughly one half mile outside of the village when he first felt it: a twisting sensation that washed over him like a fog, filling his senses and magnifying the dizziness. His skin prickled. Sweat broke out along his neck.

Within one quarter mile of the village, he begged Genma to stop and yanked his mask down. He vomited beneath a holly bush, for the first time in his life uncaring as his hair tangled in gnarled branches, leaving behind long silver strands. His perpetual need to conceal his passing superseded by the need to find an outlet. The world around him wavered; Genma and Raidou appeared distorted, flickered, and then snapped back to normal. His headache compounded as he tried to stand.

"What...what is it?" He hoped they knew what he meant.

"Hn." Genma shrugged.

Raidou sighed and answered, "The Hokage."

"The Hokage," Kakashi repeated. Killing intent so strong would surely affect the villagers, even the civilians. For all that his mind resisted coherent thought, Kakashi tried to imagine what he could have done to earn such a reaction. He and Tsunade had always had their differences, but...He wracked his brain, fighting back another wave of nausea.

"What did I do? Why..." He stayed on the ground between his ANBU escort, aware that his well-groomed reputation would never recover from such weakness, but if he survived her wrath, he wouldn't care. When they didn't answer, he asked instead, "Why are we walking?"

Again, Genma made to ignore him, but Raidou cleared his throat and muttered, "For your own safety. And ours. We needed to give Hokage-sama a minute to calm down before leaving you alone in there."

"That's right." Genma lifted the bottom of his porcelain mask and spit to the side, apparently uncaring if Kakashi saw his face since he obviously knew his identity. Squinting, Kakashi weaved, and the image of Genma blurred at the edges before slowly coming back into focus. "Apparently, the Hokage's gonna interrogate you _personally_."

The pair lifted Kakashi off the ground and resumed their trek. By the time they reached the administrative building, he was fighting just to maintain consciousness, fully carried by his ANBU guards. His breath remained caught in his throat and he couldn't speak, scream, struggle...

He felt his fall to the ground, though it took many full seconds to penetrate his pain-hazed mind. Face pressed into crimson carpet, he knew it was the Hokage's office floor. The doors snapped closed behind him, a deafening sound in the silent room, echoing the cloying hate that filled the space.

Footsteps passed close by, and although he was so very near the edge and dropping into blackness, Kakashi still started at the voice that carried over the sound of blood pounding in his ears--"You don't look anything like him."

He knew that voice. _Who? Someone...someone important._ His mind refused to put a face with the sound, even as his eyes tried to fill with tears. They wouldn't. Something numb and cold inside of him refuse to give up fighting, refused to relinquish the last shred of control. He needed to know who it was. Everything hurt. If only he could think, he could...

The dizziness receded slightly and Kakashi was able to arch his back and neck, angling until he saw the speaker silhouetted by one of the wide, low windows. Light streamed through blond hair, leaving delicate features perfectly outlined.

The air stuck in Kakashi's lungs. It refused to move past, to allow him to voice his anger and hurt and confusion, and he was mute again. The man turned and Kakashi met blue eyes directly. Nothing could hold back his pain and it rushed to the surface, the tears finally finding release, trickling down to soak the edges of his mask. Obito's tears dripped from underneath the soiled cloth over his eye. His own tears ran freely. "Is this...is this some kind of _sick joke_!?"

The blond man glared. "I could ask the same thing." They watched one another--Kakashi on the floor, Minato at the window--neither willing to believe what he was seeing.

Kakashi could feel the change coming before it occurred--his body was finally giving in to chakra depletion. In his last coherent moment before losing consciousness, he could only mumble, "Did I save Naruto?"


	8. That Day: Interlude 1

_This chapter of The Heart's Remains is an interlude between Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. It can be viewed as back story, a flashback, and excuse to write pr0n...whatever you want. I can always use the practice, so I hope you don't mind too much. _

Warning: masturbation and fantasy (however, honestly, nothing you wouldn't see in an R-rated movie lately)

* * *

**THAT DAY (an Interlude): Though we are men with mortal sin… **

"...ahh...guh...aaaah!"

Kakashi stroked himself twice more before letting his hand fall limp beside his deflating erection. Reluctantly, he took one last deep breath, luxuriating in the scent, and then tossed his sensei's pillow off of his face and onto his own side of the bed. Even still, his senses remained overwhelmed with the man: Minato's scent on the sheets, the warmth of his side of the bed that Kakashi had rolled into the moment Minato was out of the door, the room itself that seemed to channel his spirit and carried Kakashi's along with it.

He loved his sensei's house, his room, his bed. Though he might never fully admit it to anyone other than Kushina, he loved the man, as well. When he watched Minato training, working, teaching, being himself, everything in Kakashi begged the question, _"How could I not?"_ Somehow, Kushina found it all amusing and had taken to suggesting that he spend the night more often than Minato did, and on nights when it was clearly _not_ necessary.

She claimed she was "helping."

With a grunt, he twisted, reaching blindly with stretched fingers to find his hastily discarded underwear. He used them to clean himself, shivering as he swiped the rough material over newly sensitized skin with a hissing intake of breath.

* * *

"Yondaime-sama!" Ami-san greeted him at the top of the stairs just outside the mission room and his office. "Oh, Yondaime-sama! I'm so glad I caught you!" Her shrill voice echoed on the landing, startling a pigeon on the windowsill and more than a few ninja downstairs.

"Yes, Ami-san? What can I do for you?"

The blond's assistant grimaced. "I _knew_ you would forget! You have a meeting with the council this afternoon! And I see you aren't carrying the report I sent home with you last night."

The Hokage blushed slightly and awarded the woman with a sheepish grin. "Eh, right. You know, Kakashi and I were studying--"

The way Ami always rolled her eyes when he mentioned his student had been a puzzle to him for a while, so he let it go when she cut him off. "Home, now. Get the report, and come right back. We need to go over our plans right away so you will be prepared for anything those buzzards throw at you."

"Really, Ami-san. You shouldn't talk about the Councilors like that. After all, you might insult real buzzards everywhere." He smiled, bright blue eyes creasing into cheerful half-moons, and then disappeared.

He reappeared on the street outside of the administrative building. As much as he would have liked to just use a transportation jutsu to return home, he was the village leader, and it did the civilians good to see him. Still smiling, the blond headed for home.

* * *

Kakashi lay staring at the ceiling when he felt the first tingle of familiar chakra skittering across his skin. Almost immediately, he heard the front door unlock and felt the wards tremble as their master stepped through. His heart raced as he realized Minato was home, coming inside, and Kakashi was lying naked in his sensei's bed.

With a speed to rival the Yellow Flash, the teenager jumped out of bed, grabbed his clothes, and ran naked and maskless down the hall. He threw himself into the bathroom, trembling with both thrill and trepidation, and slammed the door, locking it behind him.

* * *

"Kashi?" was all Minato had time to say as the boy streaked by. It took a full ten seconds of standing in the hallway for him to register Kakashi's pale skin, uninterrupted by even an inch of cloth. The thought that he might be the only person _ever_ to have seen so much of Kakashi at once made him slightly giddy, but he squeezed his hand into a fist, letting his nails make crescent dimples in the skin of his palm and forcing his lust to the back of his mind.

Of course, the boy hadn't realized Minato would be home; he might walk...around the house...regularly...naked...and...

Minato derailed his thoughts and brought them back around to the matter at hand: he had a report to find.

With a nod of determination, he started toward the stairs, but halfway up the first step, he stopped and took a left into his bedroom, instead. The musty odor assaulted him at once, and Minato froze again as his mind worked to process the origins of the smell_...sex._ He felt heat rise in his cheeks, but couldn't stop it as he noticed a balled up pair of underwear on the floor beside the bed. Kakashi's. With just the tips of his fingers, he moved the underwear further off to the side and sat down on the edge of the bed to think before realizing his mistake.

_Kakashi was...on my bed...**on my bed?**_ He looked at the rumpled, thrown back blankets, his pillow haphazardly tossed aside. The warmth of the sheet beneath his hand beside him. _Kakashi was...was touching himself...right here...on my bed..._

A black sheath of fabric lying on the nightstand caught his eye. Kakashi's mask lay neatly folded beside the alarm. Blunt, tan fingers trailed across its dark surface. Kakashi wore the mask everywhere. _Except in my house...my room..._ He took the mask tentatively between fingers and thumb, just as the water was turned on in the shower on the other side of the wall. Minato knew from experience that Kakashi would be in there for at least thirty minutes; the boy loved long, scalding hot showers and took them as often as he could between missions.

Pressing a hand to the wall, Minato felt a tingling warmth shudder through his body as he realized Kakashi was standing, naked, wet, and soapy less than three feet away.

* * *

_ohshitohshitohshit_

Kakashi held his head under the water, ignoring his burning lungs and skin, ignoring his pounding heart and trembling legs. Minato had nearly...

_If he had been ten minutes earlier..._

Kakashi felt himself growing hard again at the thought of being caught, but he ignored that, too. Thoughts like that were the problem to begin with. Instead, Kakashi stayed under the water, waiting for his nerves and body to calm.

* * *

Lying back on the bed, legs hanging off the side, Minato lazily stroked himself, eyes closed, reveling in the sensation. Minutes before, Kakashi had...might have...been lying in the same spot. Another shiver ran through his body, and electricity danced behind closed eyelids. He listened to the running water and the way the sound changed as Kakashi moved under its flow. Then he remembered Kakashi's naked body in the hallway, his mind changing things until it became Kakashi's naked body on his bed. Minato pressed Kakashi's mask, still in hand, against his own cheek, rubbing it against stubbled skin and sighing into the feeling. Kakashi's lips, pale and pink, pouting, perfect--_ahh...gods..._--amidst the intricate scars that dotted and streaked the boy's face...just last night those lips had been on the other side of the cloth.

At that moment, had Kakashi returned to the bedroom, Minato knew he would have confessed everything. He wouldn't be able to meet Kakashi's eyes after being found laid bare, his coat pooled on the floor beside his feet, pants halfway down his thighs, the hem of Kakashi's mask wet from somehow having found its way between his teeth. He would have to tell him...

"Aaah..." He could feel himself getting closer, and his hand picked up the pace. _Kakashi doesn't...was thinking of a girl, most likely...why would I think he could even want..._

Kushina was responsible for planting those seeds in his mind. But if he thought about her for long, he would lose his rhythm _and_ arousal, so he pushed past her to another thought, back to the mask against his cheek and what...what would it feel like if he...

_...just for a second...a minute...what if..._

The water was still running in the shower and he estimated Kakashi was only half-done. Minato's cock strained and bounced as he let go, hands momentarily occupied with slipping the boy's mask on over his head. The effect of the forbidden act was immediate: a shiny, viscous drop fell from the tip of his pulling, twitching erection, landing on the skin of his hip, drawing his attention back to the present. Finally, he began working in earnest, slipping his hand along the shaft, sucking part of the mask into his mouth. His free hand ran across his face, pressing the fabric into his skin and wondering if it was what Kakashi's masked face would feel like beneath his fingers. He cupped his hand against his own cheek, mouth opening into a long, silent _aaahh..._

The boy was beautiful and silvery pale; a specter in the darkness of each night he spent in Minato's bed. Even as the blond fought the urge to touch Kakashi in the middle of the night, he watched him sleep for hours, aware that no one--_no one_--got to see the boy's face. That it was _his_. Kakashi's cheeks and chin were pitted with scars and cuts that spoke only of his dedication to the village. They made him more perfect in Minato's eyes, and he was proud of his student. _His Kakashi_. The scars were like beacons in the night; it was a constant struggle not to kiss and lick and heal and hope to make him whole and okay again.

"Guh...ah..." His own sudden intake of breath and the shock that ran down his spine went unnoticed as he imagined Kakashi, imagined how beautiful he would be kneeling between his legs. Those pink lips wrapped around Minato's cock, sliding just like his own hands were sliding, and sucking him in...sucking...

"Oh...gods...oh...ah..."

He could see the boy's head bobbing, his own fingers laced, intertwined in silver hair...

"Ah...fff...fu..." He couldn't control his voice or his chakra as he tumbled over the edge, come spreading across hand and hips, soaking the rough patch of blond curls. The room still reverberated with the sound of his moan and the traitorous word it contained--_"Kashi..."_--as he lay, out of breath, on the bed.

* * *

Just as he reached toward the tap, Kakashi felt a disturbance of nearby chakra. The blond was still in the house, and Kakashi was sure that he wasn't ready to face him. With a sigh, he straightened up and closed his eyes, resigning himself to a longer shower than usual.

* * *

_He's...he's my student..._

Former student.

_He isn't even...I mean, he likes girls, I'm sure, and I--_

How do you know _what_ he likes? You've never asked him. Kushina seems to think otherwise.

_But I'm...I'm married to Kushina. The villagers will think--_

Do they need to know? You're ninja; you should be able to manage a secret like that.

_But it's wrong._

Why?

A pause in his thoughts, his argument with himself, as Minato struggled to think through the haze of his body's satisfaction. _He's just...a boy._

...of legal age. He's a ninja assassin who kills people for a living. Hardly a child.

_I should stop asking him to stay._

You've tried before and failed. Besides, he likes it, else he wouldn't stay. Instead of lying there all night, watching him...why don't you just reach out to him and--

_No._

Coward.

_Yes, I am a coward. Because I put the will and well being of my village first. Fine. Sandaime, the Council, the village...they wouldn't understand...I'm an example...and...an example...and..._

You said that.

_...and...and..._ He let out a deep, heady breath and smacked his forehead for focus.

_...andilovehimshit._

Yes.

_What do I do?_

His inner thoughts remained frustratingly quiet as Minato lay in bed staring out the window through the slightly parted curtains. He knew what he wanted to do. What he _would_ do, after Naruto was born and their lives more settled. He would have to tell Kakashi. He needed sleep, if nothing else, and the possibilities of what Kushina had merely hinted at, if her instincts were right...it was worth the risk.

* * *

Slender pale fingers turned the knobs, abruptly shutting off the flow of water. A hand shot out into the bathroom and groped for a towel, before pulling one into the shower stall.

When Kakashi stepped out, he was mostly dry. His skin flushed brightly from the long exposure to Minato's seemingly inexhaustible supply of hot water. With a sigh and a glare at his reflection, Kakashi left the bathroom, clothes in one hand, the other holding onto a fuzzy white towel looped loosely around his waist.

* * *

At first, Minato didn't notice the absence of sound coming from the small room on the other side of the wall. Then, suddenly, he was aware that it was all too quiet, and he jumped out of bed, dizzily waiting for his body to adjust to the sudden change. There was no doubt as to how he came by the name "The Yellow Flash" as he flew around the room in search of the towel he usually kept for such situations. It happened to be in a drawer, and in seconds he had finished swiping it across his limp penis and the sticky patch of hair. He wiped his hand and shoved the towel between the mattresses of his bed. Then, squirmed back into his pants, pulled his shirt down, and shrugged on his white, flame-embroidered coat, smoothing out the wrinkles. Hastily, he grabbed Kakashi's mask form the bed and folded it neatly on the table. As an afterthought, he rearranged the blankets, considered, and then made the bed.

With a quick look in the mirror and a few flicks of his fingers through unruly blond hair--ignoring the tightening of his gut when he thought of the same fingers twining in silver--he stepped out into the hallway and nearly ran into Kakashi.

Kakashi who was still wet.

Who was only wearing a towel.

Whose hair was still dripping.

Minato's eyes followed a lone drop from the boy's temple to his jaw, down the delicate curve of his neck, along his collar bone and angling down the contour of his chest, finally stopping, dangling from the end of a small, stiff nipple, hanging tentatively before dropping to the floor. Minato released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding as it fell. His hands twitched at his sides, resolve faltering as he longed to reach toward Kakashi, to touch him. _Anything._

His body moved an involuntary step backward as common sense took control.

* * *

"Sensei?" Minato's mouth was hanging open, moving slightly, but no words were coming out. Kakashi measured the distance between them as he always did, wondering how he could manage to get just the smallest bit closer. "Are you alright?"

"I...uh..." The blond looked around the thin corridor before smiling. "Oh, I just forgot my, uh, coat. Had to come back for it." He shrugged. "Meeting."

Still smiling, Minato passed by, strangely close to the wall, maximizing the space between them, holding Kakashi's eye contact until he was fully past. There was a small hesitation, a wobble, and then he strode out the front door.

Kakashi remained in the hallway long after the slamming vibrations of the door had dissipated, staring at the spot where the blond had been. He was sure his sensei had been wearing his coat when he left that morning. With his own shrug, he went into the bedroom. He took in the way the room still smelled of sex and sweat and felt a blush rise on his cheeks. With a scowl, he wondered if the blond, oblivious as he could be, had even noticed.

He observed the straightened bed with only passing interest and everything else seemed to be in place.

* * *

"Hokage-sama! Where is your report?" Ami squinted as she asked, scrutinizing the thin worry lines that crossed the blond's forehead.

Minato licked his lips carefully before meeting her gaze. "You know, Ami-san, it's really unnecessary. I'm sure you could just _tell_ me about it and--"

"Hokage-sama..."

He scratched the back of his head out of habit and asked sheepishly, "Yes?"

"Did you _lose it_? Did it get _destroyed_? Did you just _forget_ to go and get it? No, even better, let me guess, you got home and then forgot _why_ you went back?"

He placed a placating arm around her shoulders and sighed. "You know...funny you should mention that..."

* * *

Slipping his mask on over his still wet hair, Kakashi wrinkled his nose at the dampness of the fabric, particularly the wet spot on the neck and another near his mouth. It was an annoyance, but really, he admitted, he should have waited to put it on until after his hair was dry.

With a grimace, he left the house, passing easily through his sensei's wards, and headed toward the mission room. Perhaps it was time to get out of the village for a while. He wasn't sure if he could face the blond's innocent smile and wide eyes that night when he uttered the inevitable, "You could just stay here."

His bond with Minato was the one thing he needed to preserve, and he honestly couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't molest the man given half the chance.


	9. Chapter 7

_Affectionately called "the touching chapter," it's my favorite after Kakashi's tour through the house in chapter 2. I hope you enjoy it. Please review, as they keep me going! Otherwise, I start to lose interest. This series is now dedicated to MoiyaHatake and FuyunoAkegata for beta reading and to bimbomushi-sensei for her unending support and relentless begging for more chapters!  
_

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**CHAPTER 7: And in my dying, I'm more alive than I have ever been.**

When he awoke, the first detail Kakashi noticed was that he was no longer sprawled on the carpet. Instead, he lay comfortably arranged on a couch. _**The** couch._ The dark red one with thick, stiff cushions that knew just how to support someone pretending to read _Icha Icha Paradise_ for hours while watching a certain blond Hokage work.

"What did you mean?" The voice came heavy with distrust, interrupting his thoughts. The man who looked like Minato sat perched on the corner of the desk, eyes shifting over Kakashi, searing his skin as they searched for deception.

Kakashi's anger flared. "Tell me who you are!"

"You know who I am—am I your target?" The blond imposter started pacing, circling the room, his desk, thumb in his mouth, gnawing at the nail. Kakashi shook with the realization that the man even knew his sensei's most obscure habits. "You're not a threat, of course, not really. But it's the principal of the thing. Coming _here_, looking like _that_..."

"If I _were_ a threat, don't you think you would be dead already?" Kakashi asked, the charade far past wearing on his nerves.

The sharp glare the blond turned on him was so like Minato that his breath caught in his throat and he barely registered the accompanying words: "What do you mean? It's not like you can do anything to me, and your presence is hurtful enough."

To Kakashi's surprise, his first instinct was to rage and yell, to fight. The blond man was undoing his well-honed self-control—_he always could._ Instead, he waited, silently hoping the man would give something away.

The blond continued, growing louder as he spoke until he was finally yelling into Kakashi's face, "How do you know about Naruto? No one here knows about him. And what did you mean—'Did I save him?' Why are you here? Looking like...like an adult version of _him_? Wh-who...the hell...are you!?"

Kakashi stared into fiery blue eyes, so like his student's. They swirled with the Yondaime's fury, and pain that hadn't been there before—but, they were still Minato's. He took in the scent that wafted from the folds of the man's white coat, and it was exactly as he remembered it. But warm. And alive.

There was no way he was Minato. His sensei was dead. He'd seen it. _Felt_ it. Fought the urge to join him.

_Dead._

With growing frustration, Kakashi stated bluntly, "I am Hatake Kakashi, and I—"

The blond retreated to the window, leaving his back to the couch. "Don't say that name. You don't have the right. 'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive. Try again."

Kakashi arched a brow.

_'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive._

It was an odd choice of words. And if 'Kakashi' was alive...what did that make...

_'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive._

A single splinter of hope was working its way into his mind as he started sorting out the details. The possibility, what it could mean...

His body was still too drained to follow Minato across the room, so, instead, he glared at the crimson carpeting.

_'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive._

What did that make the blond?

_Damn._

_'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive._

"No. He isn't." When the blond didn't react, Kakashi started muttering, thinking out loud, working through his tangled memories. "The seal on Naruto was breaking; the Kyuubi was going to escape. You made a mistake, so I performed the jutsu. I...resealed it...It must have been a success. The shinigami; yes, he was there. He was laughing..."

"Hmph. _That_ sounds about right." Kakashi wasn't sure when the man had turned to face him. He looked up to find Minato halfway across the room. "But you missed one crucial detail: I already sealed it, and the seal should have been unbreakable, at least, from the inside. The shinigami already has my soul; he can't have another on the same contract." Minato's face twisted with barely veiled grief, and he whispered softly, "They'll never let me see him, you know, or Kakashi. It's part of the nature of this place, to deny the prisoner the one thing...the...I don't know _who_ you are, but I want you out. Now."

"No." Kakashi held the man's blue gaze. "You. Made. A. Mistake. You. Namikaze Minato. Likes ramen, prefers pork. Likes to sleep with the windows open. Snores...sometimes." He felt his voice tremble. "Married by arrangement to Uzumaki Kushina."

"But that's...! Anyone could find those things out if they really wanted! It doesn't prove—"

"Married by arrangement to Uzumaki Kushina," he repeated, "but more often slept beside me."

Minato started forward, then stopped. Involuntarily, Kakashi rose, standing eye-level with the blond, his feet carrying him forward, too fast, too soon. He stumbled and Minato intercepted his fall on instinct, balancing, looking down on a head of silver hair, holding Kakashi's upper body as he tried to find his feet and failed.

Kakashi slumped against Minato and felt his body go rigid beneath him. He looked up into the blond's confused expression, his own limbs trembling against Minato's shoulders. Minato who by all rights should not be there. Anywhere. And yet his scent and warmth were all around, pervading Kakashi's senses, his reason. When he whispered a faint, "Sensei," and saw the man's eyes widen slightly, lips parting in a silent gasp, Kakashi let out a gasp of his own, aware that his cheeks were warming to a pale pink, the tinge of a blush growing hotter with every moment he spent pressed against the man's chest. He could feel a steady beat against his cheek and jaw, mirror to his own heart that pounded against his ribs. Surely Minato could feel it.

He bit down on his tongue to find some kind of focus and only released it when he thought he could keep his voice steady. "You made a mistake in the jutsu," he reiterated, watching as Minato began shaking his head, slowly at first, then more vigorously, with more conviction.

"You can't be..."

"I am."

Instead of being dumped from the man's arms as he expected, Kakashi felt a swift tug at his upper body, a sudden upheaval. Without warning, he found himself sprawled haphazardly across one end of the couch, Minato sitting on the cushion beside him, leaned slightly forward and peering at Kakashi. His eyes, previously steely and pained, were neither; they were just Minato's eyes. Minato's quirked, considering mouth. His hands folded and twitching in his lap. Minato.

Kakashi's own eye closed as the man brought both of those hands to his face, to his mask, and gently tugged it down, leaving it bunched beneath his chin. A calloused thumb grazed the small, pitted scar in his cheek where a senbon had pierced it years before. When the same hands reached for the strip of ripped fabric covering his Sharingan, Kakashi didn't protest. He let the man gingerly remove it, brushing back silver hair and tucking it behind his ear in a gesture so familiar that it sent a pained tremor through his body. He opened his eyes, the Sharingan blood red against pale skin made paler by chakra drain, and the effect was immediate: Minato let out a gasp, a whispered, "Obito," as his fingers traced and retraced the scar bisecting the eye, swiping at the few stray tears that escaped down a porcelain cheek.

Kakashi couldn't hide the tremble in his voice when he muttered, "It's just...dust..." and Minato wiped at the tears again, trailing rough knuckles across his skin.

"There are more scars than I remember."

"It's been fifteen years, sensei."

"Fifteen? Naruto—"

Kakashi spoke over the man's words, rasping, "Show me my scar from our last mission to Mist." The blond complied immediately, hands slipping to Kakashi's shoulders, tossing his vest to the floor and pulling down the collar of his shirt to reveal the fading scar left behind by a stray kunai. Only they knew its origin.

Minato dragged a finger across the mark, drawing the line of the cut with its tip, and one corner of his mouth twitched at the sound that slipped through Kakashi's tightly pressed lips. He stared at the shoulder beneath his hand, reluctant to break their connection. Kakashi's skin burned where his fingers touched, and he hesitated just before slipping them across the dip in his shoulder to his collar bone, his neck. They migrated up to Kakashi's face, cupping pale and stubbled cheeks, thumbs caressing the bridge of his nose. Kakashi pushed against the hands, seeking more contact, more comfort. The movement of air teased Kakashi's lips as Minato breathed, "Kashi...Kashi..." Blue eyes traveled over his skin, memorizing, remembering.

Without stopping his explorations, Minato whispered, "My family mark. Only you and Kushina would know where..." The words trailed off as Kakashi's hand immediately fumbled at Minato's waistband, peeling down the corner of his pants to reveal a small tattoo. Slender, pale fingers traced the shape, both men secretly reveling in such intimate contact. Forgetting doubts, questions, circumstances, consequ—

_tap tap tap_

They froze as a shrill voice called, "Hokage-sama? I'm leaving tea on the table outside."

Minato blushed, withdrawing his hand and scooting back on the couch, separating, leaving room to breathe. Kakashi's outstretched fingers hung in the air between them before dropping onto his lap. He felt his own cheeks heat again and hated it, mentally berating himself for letting his guard down, and then pulling up his mask.

"Thank you, Ami-san," called Minato, frowning slightly at Kakashi. In a quieter tone, he said, "You never used to keep your face hidden. Not from me. You still don't trust me."

"Hmm."

"You want to trust me?"

"Yes." Kakashi hoped the word didn't sound as desperate as it felt. He wanted so much more than trust. His fingers twitched at the memory of silky tan skin.

"I understand. For what it's worth, I don't know how you're here or why, but I do trust you. Kakashi..." Minato took his student's hand, a rare gesture of comfort, one of the few _young_ Kakashi had ever allowed, and only of his sensei. _Adult_ Kakashi didn't respond, but didn't pull away. He resisted the urge to look at Minato, who sighed. "I suppose I'll start by telling you what I do know."


	10. Chapter 8

**Angst. Answers. Sort of.** -grins- Thanks for reading, and please review to help me stay focused!! (I need the pressure of others expecting things of me.) Series still dedicated to MoiyaHatake, Fuyunoakegata, and bimbomushi-sensei (who keeps me on task and I love her for it).

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**Chapter 8: Think of the faces of the people you defend.**

"I suppose I'll start by telling you what I do know, but honestly, that's very little." Minato's eyes lingered on Kakashi as if afraid he would disappear if he looked away. Kakashi surreptitiously did the same, observing blond hair that trailed across the tan forehead, locks that framed a smooth face.

Eventually, Minato looked away, muttering, "Tea." He disappeared outside of the red double doors, preceded moments later by the smell of brewing oolong. "You still like it, don't you?"

Minato had remembered his favorite tea.

Somehow, the thought made Kakashi feel nearly giddy, which he attributed to their proximity minutes before. They had been much closer, so close Kakashi could have flicked his tongue out and caught a taste of Minato's lips. So close he could have thrust his hips ever so slightly and found himself pressed against Minato's torso.

Kakashi fought the way his body tried to gravitate toward the man and made a noncommittal noise of agreement. Yes, he still liked oolong. He took the cup that was offered and sniffed it. _Plain. No sugar, no cream._ Just the way he liked it. Slowly, he hooked a finger into his mask, lowering it again, letting it rest against the cleft below his bottom lip, aware that Minato was watching.

The blond let out a breath and quickly sat down on a floor cushion alongside the squat table he had re-situated beside the couch. He took three cubes of sugar, popping one into his mouth immediately and dropping the remaining pair gently into the cup on the table in front of him, watching them dissolve. Kakashi observed the way Minato bit his lip, how he held his cup, adding them to the mounting list of evidence that suggested the man before him truly was whom he claimed to be.

Putting them back on track and away from his own thoughts, Kakashi asked, "Sensei, where are we?"

Minato seemed to search his tea before responding. "I don't know. I've always believed I was dead, but something else, as well. Existing somewhere outside of death. So, a prison, perhaps? I can't really say." He smiled apologetically at Kakashi. "Aside from that, I only know the obvious: It's a replica of Konoha, and seems to be a combination of different periods from my own memories." The blond's smile turned mischievous and Kakashi was reminded of another, younger blond. "Things changed when you arrived. They put my face up on the mountain?"

"Yes. Not long after."

"It's not much of a likeness."

"Mmm. I never thought so."

"I'm sorry I can't tell you what's going on. If you leave the village you can travel through the forest for a while before ending up back in front of the gate. After a while, I stopped trying. A world without you and Kushina and Naruto is the most devious torture imaginable, and the only way to preserve my sanity was to embrace what was offered and pretend."

"It's okay."

Slipping into old habits, they sipped the tea in familiar silence until Minato put down his cup and waited for Kakashi to do the same. His eyes seemed softer than ever when he asked, "Fifteen years? What's he like?"

"Kushina," Kakashi replied at once and Minato let out a hearty laugh. The Copy-nin added with a grin, "He has your hair and eyes, some of your mannerisms, even, but he's energetic like she was--"

The sound of Minato's empty tea cup being upset filled the room with clattering and curses and froze Kakashi's voice in his throat. Between gritted teeth, Minato asked, "_Was?_"

_Oh._ Minato didn't know. How could he? They sat in delicate silence; Minato seething with pulsing emotion, Kakashi reliving it all again--_His ANBU captain called out the orders over the destructive cacophony of the demon fox's rampage. The Hokage's wife was dead, confirmed by Tsunade, herself. Behind a painted dog mask, a lone ANBU loosed a single, raw sob before straightening into the rank of his brethren, many of whom were entering the village for the last time._

His eyes fell on a nearby window, the grass--the color of her eyes--and swallowed to contain the same sob again, unable to look at Minato, only managing to mumble, "The hospital..."

Minato let out a hiss of breath, knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the table.

His own hands balled on his lap, Kakashi finally found his voice and continued, "Tsunade-sama was able to save Naruto, and Kushina...there wasn't any pain." He didn't want to lie to Minato but he couldn't tell him the many truths that would destroy him. Minato didn't need to know that she had shielded Naruto from the collapsing ceiling, her lower body crushed by a falling roof beam, her chest pierced by one of the metal supports. He didn't need to know that she had died at least an hour before the fox was finally sealed, that Naruto hadn't been with his mother, but with Tsunade when the seal took hold, and that Kushina's blood was already cold when Minato took his last breath, believing himself victorious.

No one had come to tell him, not even Kakashi. The teenager's orders were clear, even if his heart and conscience were not.

Minato's hands were shaking as he folded them on the table, staring down at laced fingers, mumbling, "Kashi..." And for once he didn't think or analyze or calculate or even try to stop himself. He slid to the floor between the table and the couch and covered Minato's hands with one of his, a mirror of the blond's earlier gesture.

Struggling to control his shaking voice, Minato asked, "And Naruto? An...an orphan?"

"There were many."

"But a life alone, with that...that thing inside of him. Is he okay? Is he normal and healthy? Tell me about my son. Please?"

Kakashi felt his heart miss a beat, taking two to catch up, sending a shock of pain across his chest. He had already begun to fabricate another lie, but a lie shrouded in truth. "Naruto is fine, sensei. Be proud of him. I am; Jiraiya is. Tsunade adores him, and has practically named him her successor. He has a special gift for it." Amongst the living, Kakashi supposed the blond boy and Iruka were his most precious people, his friends. He really was proud of the man Naruto was becoming.

"I'm...I'm glad. It helps to know he's loved and cared for." Minato slipped one hand out from under Kakashi's and placed it on top, trapping Kakashi's hand between his own. He watched his former student's curve-eyed smile and couldn't help but ask, "And you, Kakashi?"

"Me?"

"Do you have...are you..." When Kakashi met his eyes, Minato's expression clearly dared the silver-haired nin to try and let go. Kakashi fought to stifle a blush and knew he failed miserably. He was sure he had misunderstood something vital. "You were..."

"Sensei?"

"No, forget it." Minato shrugged as he stood, unable to muster any kind of warmth in his expression, and Kakashi was reminded that it had been a very long, emotional day for them both. Minato paused, seemingly lost in thought, and then asked, "Kakashi, if you're going to be stuck here, too, you'll need a place to stay and...I would be happy to offer you a room in my house."

Kakashi's stomach sank in a confusing mix of excitement and disappointment. He tried to ignore it. "A room in my house" wasn't the same; Kakashi grudgingly admitted that _they_ weren't the same, either.

With unintentional stiffness, he answered, "Of course, sensei. Thank you."

"Do you think you can stand?" The blond rose, pulling Kakashi's hand, still firmly clasped in his own. Kakashi glanced pointed from their hands up to the man, himself, but Minato's face betrayed nothing other than concern for his former student, and Kakashi wondered what he'd hoped to find.

"Slowly," he answered. "I should be fine by tomorrow."

He felt a squeeze on his hand, reassurance, and then Minato asked, "Are you ready, then?" Kakashi barely had time to nod before there was a faint tug at his limbs, the world flashed white, and...it was over. "Welcome home, Kakashi."

They were standing in the entry of his sensei's house--the house Kakashi had been searching less than twenty-four hours prior. There was no blood on the floor, no mud. There were no thick layers of congealed dust piled in drifts upon every surface. It felt lived-in and familiar, and Kakashi closed his eyes, breathing it all in deeply. It was the one place that had ever felt like home after his father's death. Even before, if he admitted it to himself.

His eyes popped open when Minato let go of his hand and asked, "Can you walk, Kakashi?"

The Copy-nin took a step forward, shaking, but otherwise steady. "Hmm. Apparently."

"Good," Minato said too brightly, melancholy shining through a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Let's eat!" Kakashi bobbed his head in acquiescence and followed him into the kitchen, rolling his eyes when Minato pulled out two containers of shrimp-flavored cup ramen. But he didn't complain, and for once, didn't berate his sensei for his choice of diet, though he did wonder why the dead required food. He filed the question away for later when he wasn't so hungry.

Dinner passed with small talk and a bit of cheap wine to go with their cheap noodles. Kakashi explained the state of Naruto's seal and the need for resealing the demon, all amidst Minato's mixed mutterings of curses and apologies as he realized his mistake.

A single, misguided finger movement during the jutsu changed the seal's duration. To fifteen years.

Minato continued apologizing when they moved from the table to the sofa, bringing mugs of rich coffee along with them. They dropped their vests and pouches into a pile nearby so that only t-shirts and pants covered well-honed muscle and each could curl comfortably into his side of the two-seater.

Kakashi continued reassuring Minato that it was okay, that all had ended well, and most of all, "I died without regrets, sensei. I don't see the problem."

But Minato kept looking at him as though he expected Kakashi to erupt anytime. Kakashi watched back, unsure of what to expect.

It was then that both reached for their coffee cups at once. There was an awkward moment in which the couch groaned under the shifting weight as each leant forward. Fingers brushed, barely a breath against skin, and then gone. The sensation was lost as they followed through, taking up the cups in near unison, putting them down again--first Kakashi, then Minato, each avoiding the other's eyes, hands resting on their knees.

Again, they took up small talk about the village and the past, Obito and Rin. Kakashi bit his lip to refrain from reacting when he felt snaking hot fingers against his own, again just a whisper of knuckles, but this time lingering, questioning. "You know, Kakashi...you could sleep downstairs...like before...if..." Minato didn't finish the sentence. His voice died when Kakashi jumped off of the sofa, grabbing up the two empty coffee cups and taking them to the kitchen sink.

"Really, sensei," he called over his shoulder, "Who knew you were such a tease."

He hated the sound of the words, and felt the twist in them as readily as if they were aimed at himself. He just couldn't believe, not yet, that this was Minato. Not if he wanted him like Kakashi had always hoped. It was too..._out of character_. It wasn't the Minato he knew, and to accept any other version than the original would be something too close to infidelity.

The blond glowered, sinking back into the couch and muttering, "I wasn't teasing."

The air in the room solidified and neither moved, neither breathed; each second guessing the other's motivations and reactions. Wondering, if not hoping.

Kakashi cleared his throat and stepped onto the stairs. "Good night, sensei."

He didn't stay long enough to hear, but Minato said it anyway: "'Night, Kashi."


	11. Chapter 9

_Same info. Same dedications to the same wonderful people. Angst. Some sweetness. And a decision. :) I'm currently writing the next chapter so that's all for the mass update for now. The next one is going to be rather explicit, I hope, so it will be on my LJ, available to anyone 18, and I'll post a summary of any plot developments on here on the chapter afterward. Thanks for reading._

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**Chapter 9: Discard regret, that in this debt a better world is made.**

Kakashi moved about the room in darkness, unwilling to utilize the light switch. Unwilling to bring any more light into the room than what was offered by the pale moon outside. He didn't want to see the things he knew were there, hidden at the dark edges of the weak glow.

Pulling back the blankets and crawling into bed, mask firmly in place, fully clothed, Kakashi rolled over to put his back against the wall and closed his eyes. The faint scent of cedar and dewberries on the pillow seemed to intensify when he was using one less sense. Gloved hands rubbed small circles against the hem of the bed spread, grasped between two fingers on each hand, thumb and forefinger. He didn't need to see it to know the blanket was powder pink with tiny sakura petal illustrations. The pillowcase a darker hue that matched the sheets he lay between. Kushina's.

He didn't have to guess that the small rectangular picture frames reflecting light from the shelves, glinting and winking as he moved, contained photographs of himself, the Yellow Flash, and Kushina, pregnant with Naruto. Together. Like a family.

The various small items around the room were the same as always. Dried flowers hanging along the wall above the desk. A few paintings of Whirlpool Country, brought with her family as refugees from their destroyed nation. What was left of her Icha Icha series after years of Kakashi claiming the books for himself, one-by-one. She had never complained, even playfully suggested he read one out loud to Minato, claiming he would blush the loveliest shade of pink.

He never had.

When he thought about it, he'd never taken any of her advice regarding his sensei, and in hindsight he wondered if she knew something he didn't or if she was only teasing him.

_Teasing._

Kakashi blushed in the dark, recalling Minato's muttered, "I wasn't teasing," just before Kakashi had climbed the stairs.

He couldn't think of anywhere he'd rather be than with Minato. _So, why am I up here, instead?_

The man's chakra was still strong, detectable directly beneath Kakashi on the floor below. He knew without thinking that Minato was sitting at his desk. His bed was on the opposite side of the room. He was tempted—more than tempted—to go downstairs, to knock on his door and insist he sleep, to crawl in beside him as he always had. It was a simple thought, but the reality was that he _could_ do so and that jarred him more than any of the ghosts of memories in the house.

To assuage the urge, Kakashi slid out of bed, masking his chakra, and picked up one of the framed photographs at random.

It depicted Kushina standing in the Hokage's office, her abdomen protruding far enough that it was easily the sixth or seventh month of her pregnancy. Minato's face lay against her stomach, his eyes closed, a grin lighting up his features. In his hand, he gripped Kakashi's wrist, forcibly holding his student's flat palm against the fabric and taut skin as Kakashi scowled beside him. He remembered that day. Less than a minute later, Naruto had kicked. The blond father-to-be had acted like a fool, running around the administrative building telling people that his son was going to be a taijutsu master. But Kakashi had remained, both hands on Kushina's belly, feeling Naruto roll and kick repeatedly at him and his intruding chakra signature. Kushina had slipped her fingers into his hair, and when he looked up questioningly, she smiled down at him.

Until picking up the photograph, Kakashi had forgotten her words: "Thanks for giving Naruto a chance, Kashi-kun."

With trembling fingers, he placed the frame on the shelf. The force of the memory, the vivid impression it left, was enough to convince him not to touch another.

In defiance, he flopped back down onto the bed.

_Kushina and Kakashi sat far enough away that Minato's naked body was hidden by the overlapping branches and trunks of the trees that stood between the pond and the clearing, but close enough to hear him splashing, the yelled "Banzai!" each time he jumped off of the small cliff and into the sheltered pond. Mid-August had signaled the arrival of a late warm front that left most of the village sweltering in the unexpected heat wave. Kushina couldn't join Minato, as the baby was due in the next three weeks and Tsunade had ordered her not to stress her body, but the blond had tried to convince Kakashi—_Just leave your clothes over here in a pile with mine and come-ooon, Kashi-kun!_ The words went straight to his groin, along with the first view of Minato's suddenly exposed hip. The teenager had lain back on the grass and found some interesting clouds to examine, thoroughly ignoring the man's harried undressing and excited ramblings about the water and how cold it was going to be. He didn't think he could manage to hide his obvious arousal if it was allowed to escape the confines of his uniform, and even if the blond was clueless, Kushina wasn't._

_In fact, as soon as his sensei was out of hearing range, Kushina laughed in amusement and grinned at the young Copy-nin. "He doesn't let it show much, but he's disappointed, you know." When Minato unknowingly punctuated her sentence with another yell, undermining the sentiments of the statement, she rolled her eyes. "What I mean is, this was his idea. He wanted to spend time with you."_

_"Then, he should."_

_The redhead leveled a glare at Kakashi, though a smile twinkled at the corners of her eyes. "Why don't you tell him, Kashi-kun?"_

_"I have no idea what you're talking about."_

_"Talk to him."_

_"I do. Every day."_

_A faint snort from Kushina signaled her admitted defeat in their daily charade._

_Kakashi sat up on his elbows despite himself. "Do you really think I should?" Kushina's eyebrows climbed her forehead in obvious shock. He didn't see why she should be surprised; she knew how he felt about the man. "I'm serious."_

_"You're always serious." She grinned, poking a finger into the teenager's shoulder before nodding. "Yes, I do. Or you could write him a letter, and maybe include a few pictures of your—" At a sudden, fiercely indignant look from the boy that, frankly, bordered on murderous, Kushina laughed again and rephrased her statement to simply, "You should."_

_"And if he—" _hates me, laughs at me, punches me, reports me for fraternization…**rejects me**_ "—doesn't feel the same?"_

_"One of the best feelings in the world is getting everything out into the open, Kashi-kun. Carrying a secret can be a far heavier burden than the possible embarrassment of telling." She swiped a hand through silver hair before rising haltingly up and off of the ground. Though she was a kunoichi, Naruto's shifting weight kept her constantly off balance and Kushina's natural grace had dwindled to nothing in those last months. "Especially when you only _assume_ you know how he'll react." She smiled down at Kakashi, still sitting on the ground, and held out a hand. "C'mon, let's gather his clothes and retrieve Min-chan. Then, we'll find something to eat."_

_Kakashi blushed behind his mask, as always thankful for its presence. _

Kakashi came downstairs in the morning after a night of fitful sleep to find his sensei already pouring the coffee. Mask pooled around his neck, he gladly accepted a cup of the thick, dark liquid. His mismatched eyes rose to meet Minato's, searching for any sign of _something_ in the deep, bright blue.

He caught Minato's wrist as he pulled away to retrieve his own cup. The blond was blushing.

"Last night, you said..."

Minato's brows rose, eyes narrowing. "Last night, I was drinking cheap wine and chasing it with highly caffeinated coffee. The combination makes me… I would hardly count anything I said as reliable."

"But, you..." One look from those eyes seemed to have reduced him to age fifteen again and unable to get the words out. _Sharingan Kakashi_, the epitome of calm, cool shinobi. Finally, he huffed out a sigh. "I know what you said, sensei." Kakashi leaned forward the required two inches to press his lips against Minato's, soft, warm, moist with coffee. He lingered to soak up as much of the flavor as possible before settling back on his feet, tongue swiping across his own mouth to greedily lap at the taste of his sensei. Minato shuddered visibly and Kakashi relaxed enough to smile, the expression exaggerated by the absence of his mask.

"Ka-ka-shi...?" The syllables fell from Minato's mouth one at a time, and Kakashi leaned in again, swallowing up any other words the blond might have to say. Daring to let his lips part, just enough to pull tender flesh between his own, he carefully pushed the tip of his tongue forward sliding over the captured lip, then between, just enough to find out if the rest of the man's mouth tasted as good as it felt against his own. A soft mewl escaped his throat when his tongue met Minato's in a gentle stroke. Just a taste before he was pulling back, panting softly, well aware that Minato was just as stunned.

_Years_. Kakashi had waited years to kiss the man like that, and it was worth every second of regret and guilt and longing.

"Kashi-kun…I…walk…want to? Fresh air?"

No, he didn't.

Kakashi wanted to reach for the blond and kiss him again. But he didn't. Couldn't. He'd make due with what he'd received, thankfully, because the kiss had eased an ache Kakashi had at some point forgotten in its constant presence.

Smiling again, finding it easy to do when Minato was nearby, Kakashi stated simply, truthfully, "Anything you want, sensei."

His hands were shoved deep into his pockets as he walked beside his sensei; the blond's were folded behind his back. Minato's cheeks were powdered with a barely detectable blush, and he seemed ready to burst, obviously holding back the full force of his grin. From an outside point-of-view, it would be impossible to know the two had done more than share coffee that morning, but Kakashi could feel the man's eyes falling on him occasionally, a ghostly pressure on his lips, and there was no way to deny what had happened.

He filed it all away for later as they spent the day moving through the village, the market, the academy, toward the training fields. Half of his brain observing Minato, the other half scouring the street for threats, cover, potential weapons. It came as second nature to the Copy-nin, habit ingrained since toddler-hood, in part by the man beside him.

When the sound of fighting set off an internal alarm as they turned a corner, Kakashi's hands were suddenly holding kunai. Then one of the participants came into view, and he was standing in front of Minato, shielding him, mentally stuck somewhere between a scream and a sob, externally completely in control, except...The involuntary, whispered, "Sasuke," that slipped through masked lips was barely audible, even to the man he was pressing back against. _No, no, no, no…_

"Kakashi?! What are you doing?"

"Sensei, this is—"

"It's Uchiha Sasuke. Why are you...?"

"Sensei—" He thought of all of the ways in which he'd failed Sasuke. His team. Minato had been an excellent sensei; the things that had happened to their team hadn't been Minato's fault. But Kakashi could have..."I could have saved him...stopped him from..." Now Sasuke was there, and he could only protect his sensei from the traitor—_not traitor, never traitor_.

Minato leaned forward from behind Kakashi, lips grazing the soft shell the Copy-nin's ear, whispering, "You knew him?" A silent nod from Kakashi. As an afterthought, the Hokage added, softly, "I'm sorry. He won't recognize you."

Then he smiled and stepped around Kakashi. "My apologies, Sasuke-kun. My friend is a little overzealous at times. How is your training progressing?"

"Very well, Minato-sama," Sasuke smiled back at the blond. Kakashi could only stare, watching slack-jawed behind his mask as his sensei and Sasuke walked back toward the training ground, the Hokage's arm draped over the younger man's shoulder. And he _was_ a man, exactly as Naruto had described him. Taller, broad chested with stronger features that had yet to be fully defined in his coming of age. Sasuke looked nothing like Itachi, for which Kakashi was somehow grateful. And Sasuke was smiling. He would have given anything for Naruto to see it.

"Funny, isn't it? The way those two seem to have bonded." He knew that voice. Turning toward the man beside him, Kakashi studied his features, confirming that Iruka…looked like Iruka. He smiled at that thought. His friend was constant and steady, even in death.

_In death._ They weren't dead. He was sure Iruka was in the village, the _real_ village, at that very moment. And Sasuke...he couldn't be as sure, but he was almost positive his student was still alive as well. So what did it mean?

"_Funny_? Perhaps I would have chosen a different word, but, yes, it _is_ strangely amusing." For a moment, he felt the thrust of jealousy into his thoughts. First, on his own behalf, but immediately that dissipated, leaving only a cold sadness. Then, for Naruto, because it was the type of relationship he should have had with the blond man.

In the distance, Minato showed Sasuke a taijutsu maneuver, and then watched as the Uchiha mimicked it perfectly. His Sharingan was exposed, watching the Hokage with more attention than he had ever spared his own teammates. Kakashi slipped his hitai-ate up to use his own Sharingan, but immediately felt dizzy, making a grab for his friend before crumpling to the ground beside Iruka, eyes pinched tightly shut.

"Sir! Are you—Hokage-sama!!"

Minato arrived in a flicker of stray leaves and was on the ground beside Kakashi before they floated away. Sasuke was trotting across the field, intent on the same destination. After a quick examination, the blond asked Iruka to explain. He felt Kakashi's skin for clamminess, his hands for cold, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"He adjusted his hitai-ate and—"

"Idiot." Minato pulled Kakashi's hitai-ate down over his eye, covering Obito's vision with a pang of sadness. As his former student slowly stirred, he asked in a quiet voice laced with worry, "What were you thinking?"

Kakashi opened his natural eye, lying on the grass and looking up into his sensei's blue gaze for one long second before closing it again and mumbling, "Why? Why does everything _blur_? _Flicker_? Explain." He had thought it was only an artifact before, but Sasuke...something had changed when he looked at him with the Sharingan.

"So you can see it now, too. I had hoped to spare you that, if I could. If you can only see it with...well, then perhaps you've gained a reprieve from the worst of it. Iruka...could you go back and train Sasuke-kun?" The smile he threw over his shoulder at Iruka was strained and empty, but the chuunin didn't seem to mind. With a bow and a set of efficient hand signs, the darker man disappeared.

"Sensei." Minato's fingers were absently rubbing his hand where they had remained and threatened to draw his attention. Kakashi forced the sensation away to the back of his mind and waited patiently for the explanation, eyes focused on the back of the man's head and the blond hair that reminded him of another blond in another Konoha.

Minato turned back and frowned down at Kakashi, speaking in low tones that only just reached his still-ringing ears. "Their deaths, Kakashi. You can...you can see how they will die. At least, I suspect that's what we're seeing...the plans of the shinigami? Perhaps." His frown deepened. "It isn't them. Mere shadows, images. And there's no way of knowing if it will actually happen that way...but...I've had a long time to think about it..." Standing, he offered Kakashi a hand, hauling him up off the ground and helping him find his legs.

_If I examine them with my Sharingan, I will know how they are going to die. Iruka..._

They were most of the way across the training field when Kakashi judged his voice wouldn't waver and he asked in his best nonchalant tone, "So, if that's the case, would you mind doing an experiment, sensei?" The man couldn't resist, he knew, recalling the hours they had spent in his sensei's house, counting out paces and kunai and herbs and chakra burns in order to form more useful jutsu.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing much. I'd like to know how Iruka will die." He was particularly proud that his voice remained as steady as the tan chuunin when he finished the sentence. "We are—were friends."

Minato smiled and nodded at this as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did. He slipped an arm around Kakashi's waist and held firmly, ready to catch him should he fall again. "Very well. Go ahead."

Drawing strength from the closeness, Kakashi took a deep breath filled with the scent of Minato before lifting his hitai-ate. The eye beneath remained closed, a visible sliver growing gradually larger as he eased it open. His limbs trembled against his sensei's side, but he ignored the embarrassment of seeming weak. In front of them stood Iruka, watching Sasuke, highlighted in the red glow of the Sharingan. Iruka, his friend, the first real bond he had made after his sensei's death and...Iruka's chest bore a neat hole through the center, the splayed and spiraled skin around it left no question as to the cause of his death. Kakashi's throat went dry and he couldn't speak. Wouldn't have, in any case because the implications of that wound...He swung the eye toward Sasuke and staggered back a step. The same wound. The same hole. The same meaning. Lowering his hitai-ate, Kakashi took a deep, heaving breath, twisted out of Minato's grasp, and turned away from the training field. He walked with his hands in his pockets and longing for Icha Icha Paradise to at least effect the air of someone without worries, who wasn't thinking, sorting things out.

Out of sight of the training fields, he took off at a run.

When Minato caught up to him two blocks later, it was only because Kakashi let him. The hand that clamped down on his shoulder was strong, would leave a bruise, and the sardonic smile that surfaced beneath his mask surprised even himself. He wanted to have his sensei's fingers bruised into his shoulder, his hip. But the thought was fleeting and he turned on the man with a glare so cold, he had once seen Tsunade-sama take a step back. Minato showed no sign of fear or anger. His face was a perfect, blank shinobi mask of skin and flesh and Kakashi hated it. That look never belonged on his sensei's animated features, it was too much like...for an instant he could smell it, _blood sulfur fires..._but he couldn't pull back from his own emotional mask.

"Rasengan."

Blue eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Both. Iruka and Sasuke." An explanation was necessary, of course, but, "not here on the street." He began walking once more, assuming Minato would follow.

At the old house—_not old any longer, not dusty, not empty, but still echoing with memories_—Kakashi made tea while his sensei watched. Blue eyes tracked his movements all around the kitchen. Not even bothering to look at him, Kakashi took two cups and set them on the table, retrieved the sugar and cream for Minato, and took a seat. The blond seemed to hesitate before slipping into the chair across from him.

"In Konoha..." The bitterness that lingered in his voice left a sour taste in his mouth, and Kakashi took a large drink of tea to clear it. "In Konoha, Sasuke is...he is a missing nin—"

Minato frowned sadly. "Well, then I suppose it's good...for the village...that he's going to..." His voice trailed off when Kakashi's shaking hand began to spill tea on the table and he was forced to remove the fragile teacup from his student's grasp. He replaced it with his own hand, squeezing gently, urging Kakashi to continue.

"Sasuke was my student, sensei. Naruto's teammate. The two people Naruto cares about most are Sasuke and Iruka. Naruto is also the only person able to perform your jutsu aside from Jiraiya, and Jiraiya doesn't stay in the village. It seems reasonable to assume that, somehow, Naruto will..." Kakashi found he couldn't finish the sentence, and he didn't try.

"I...see..." A discerning gaze took in the tiny wrinkles at the corners of Kakashi's eyes, the set of his jaw. "I have some business to attend to at my office. Will you be okay? You could come with me."

"No, sensei. I'll be fine."

Minato watched a moment longer, that word—_fine_—setting him on edge. With a tentative nod and a lingering hold on Kakashi's hand, he let go and disappeared out the door.

Kakashi monitored the retreating chakra and his hands began to tremble again. It was too familiar. All of it. The house, the man, the look. He loved it as much as he feared it.

He wasn't aware of time passing, of his sensei's return, and was only roused from his thoughts by the scent of pork and pears and fresh vegetables. The sound of plates and chopsticks being placed haphazardly on the table drew his attention and he turned only his head, the first outward sign of acknowledgment that he was even coherent.

"Dinner, Kashi-kun." His voice was quiet in a room already nearly silent. Kakashi only nodded, taking a seat, moving food across the plate with his chopsticks as Minato did the same.

"It's not really him."

"No, Kashi-kun."

"But it is really you."

Quieter. "Yes, Kashi-kun."

Kakashi's Sharingan was trained on his sensei before his next breath and...nothing. The man didn't flicker or blur. He didn't appear to be injured or altered in the hazy red light of Obito's sight. Just..._sensei_.

"How is it that we're..."

"We're not dead, Kakashi. At least, not in the way you imagine death. We didn't die, after all."

_We're not dead._ Mismatched red and gray stared at the man across the table, not daring to blink. Listening. Calculating.

"Our souls were taken from their still-living vessels." It was a quote from one of the books in the archives below his office. One of many he had read that afternoon.

_...still living vessels._ "Sensei, what are you saying, exactly?"

The sound of a chair scraping across the floor cut through the air. Minato paced. "It can't be so simple...and yet...fifteen years...I couldn't, but..."

"Sensei!" He growled the word between grinding teeth.

Pausing mid-step, Minato turned on Kakashi with manic, stormy eyes. "You need to go back."

Kakashi's own eyes widened as he leaned forward involuntarily. "I...no." _I can't, not now that I've found you, never. Sensei…Minato…_

"You don't understand; it's the only way! I think I can do it!" The blond clasped Kakashi's hands and squatted down in front of where he was sitting, looking up into his face. "If Iruka and Sasuke die...what will happen to my son? If Naruto…if he kills them…Please, Kashi." Minato's white knuckled grip on Kakashi's hands was little more than a distraction. Here was _sensei_ and Kakashi, his student again. He could deny the man nothing.

_I couldn't save Sasuke. He left the village anyway. But I can save Naruto. For sensei._

Kakashi grunted in affirmation, agreement, before jerking his hands out of Minato's grasp and standing, roughly sliding past him and moving halfway up the stairs. He stopped only to mutter, "Good night," in a harsh, barking voice. It was childish. He knew his sensei was right.

He still slammed the door to Kushina's room and threw himself onto the bed, glaring at the ceiling, at fate, at everything.

Minato lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling as he'd done many nights before. Only now Kakashi's chakra burned in the room above him. He had no intention of actually sleeping, there were too many equations and incantations running through his head. _I must get this right...this time...I must..._ Kakashi was his only chance to save Naruto, but when he understood the price of sending him home, would he go back on his word? _I'd hoped this would be home for him...for us...finally..._ Callused tan fingers strayed across his lips and Minato closed his eyes, remembering the taste of Kakashi and wondering if one kiss would be enough.

For three hours he stayed there. Thinking. About his team, about his sensei, about everything in his life and what his own "death" had meant. Why had he done it, agreed to seal the Kyuubi? _To save Naruto._ It was the answer. To everything.

Decision made, Kakashi rolled out of bed. He left his weapons and mask behind with his shirt in a pile on the floor and went downstairs. Moving silently through the house, he slipped into the bedroom he knew so well he could navigate even in the dark.

When he climbed into Minato's bed, he fell into inviting muscled arms wrapping around him, not because Minato had known Kakashi would come to him, but because he had hoped.


	12. Live: Interlude 2

_The last interlude before the last stretch of this story. 3-4 chapters remain. This is rated NC-17/Mature, though it's probably mostly worksafe as far as those kinds of things go._

_I don't know if everyone has/knows about mayflies, so thought I'd mention they're these insects that can live years as nymphs, but once they become adults, they live 30 minutes to one day (a few species up to three days). They have no way to use their digestive system as their mouth parts are vestigial and don't function. They don't eat in their adult lifespan, only breed and die. I scrapped this chapter three times (thirty+ handwritten pages) before I happened to be outside the night the mayflies appeared very thick. They inspired me, as they are similar to our beloved ninja like that--they live short lives and die so the next generation can live._

_I hope you like this, but I hope you understand the reasons, too. This chapter starts where the previous one left off._

_(also, ffdotnet is acting oddly, so sorry if formatting is rubbish)_

* * *

_**Live, Kakashi; it's my final command as your sensei and your Hokage.**_

_in a letter from Namikaze Minato to his former student (see HR 2)_

* * *

**I will give my life for love.**

In mid-summer, the streets of Konoha were often invaded. Flooded. Littered with bodies.

Mayflies.

Choking the air, crawling, waiting, on walls and trees and leaves and doors. Waiting to die, never taking their brief existence in hand, never taking the moment to live. They waited, apart from one another, unwilling to take a chance because their brief lives weren't really their own, after all.

They were born to die. To prolong the species, for the good of all, breeding offspring who would repeat the cycle. More brief existences.

Afraid to live and born to die.

As Kakashi lay in Minato's arms, his mind wandered and it occurred to him there in the dark that shinobi weren't much different. Devoting brief lives to their village, bearing offspring they would never see grow to their full potential, some they would never see at all. Afraid to reach out, to hold one another close and exist together, to take that chance, because they, too, were born to die.

Born to die... He couldn't help it; he gripped Minato's arms tighter around him, sliding back against his sensei's chest. It was their last chance before everything ended. Their last chance to reach out.

Shinobi were born to die. It had taken death to finally force them to live.

Minato's lips on the back of Kakashi's neck surprised him, almost as much as the hand slipping down his stomach, below the waistband of his pants. Given the chance, Minato wasn't wasting any time and Kakashi had to agree...they had already wasted two lifetimes. He groaned when the hand wrapped around the base of his already solid arousal and tugged. Callused fingers dragged along hot flesh and Kakashi groaned again, hips moving on their own, his body realizing the urgency before Kakashi had fully registered it.

An answering noise from behind drew a shiver through is body. Minato's cock, seated along the dip in Kakashi's backside, twitched and he could feel the man push, grinding against him. Grasping for contact. Like the mayflies, aware of his own time running out. "Kakashi..."

It wasn't romantic, but what did desperation know of romance? It was pure need that drove Minato to yank and tear at Kakashi's pants, his own, seeking more contact, immediate and hot and crucial.

Shinobi were born to die. A rare few chose to use that brief existence to live.

Minato pushed into the heat of Kakashi's body, hands gripping pale hips, shuddering when a moan broke the quiet, shattered it and filled the space with panting, hoarse whispers, frantic 'I love you's and 'I'm sorry's communicated with bodies and hearts and words and groans and movement.

Minato raked his hands up Kakashi's back, left a trail of gentle kisses along the range of his spine. Fingers tangled into silver hair as the man below him rocked backward on hands and knees, meeting every thrust, whining for more, for everything, persisting despite death and uncertain future.

It was what shinobi did. Persist. Continue. They also feared. Kushina had tried to tell them that it was okay to love and live, to take life by the hands and embrace it. Even okay to fear it, so long as it didn't paralyze them into inaction. Hot tears on Kakashi's back as they neared completion only reflected his own as they pooled on the sheets below. Tears for Kushina. For themselves. For comrades lost and loved and held at arm's length out of fear.

When Minato came, it was explosive, the culmination of years of tense, anxious foreplay and he didn't hold back. He let his voice fill the void between them. Kakashi's name broke from his lips between gasps, between moans and trembling wails of ecstatic grief.

And Kakashi cried, sobbing, not bothering to hide his pain and regret, but no longer hiding his love, either. No longer just a vessel, but a conduit. No longer waiting, living.

"Minato...sensei, sensei...oh, gods... Minato..."

Minato lowered himself to Kakashi's back, tan cheek against porcelain skin, pink and flushed beneath him. He kissed and touched and memorized. They loved and lived more in those quiet moments afterward than the summation of their previous existence together. Kakashi shuddered and sighed, dropping to the blankets, both rolling to the side, but keeping close, holding on as long as possible because this was it. Their one chance to be more than brief existence.

They lay again in silence, breathing together, one inside the other, one beside the other. One.

"I love you, Kakashi, and I'm sorry--" Minato brushed a lock of hair away from his sleeping lover's cheek. He wanted to see him, while he still had the chance to gaze upon that beautiful, marked face. "I'm sorry for what I have to do."


	13. Chapter 10

_Warnings: angst and character death._

**

* * *

**

So bury fear for fate draws near, and hide the signs of pain.

A flash of light.

A burst of pain.

Hands on Kakashi's neck and chest.

A loud exclamation – "He's breathing!"

Everything hurt.f

His eye fluttered open—the coal gray one, stormy with confusion and sadness—and Tenzou's own, barely visible through the slits in his ANBU mask, were enough reassurance to let Kakashi sink back into unconsciousness. Half-way to oblivion, he muttered, "Naruto," and felt a deeply rooted sensation of déjà vu.

* * *

_The ritual was simple, or so Minato had insisted. It meant the man was hiding something, but there was no time to wheedle it out of him, so Kakashi chose to trust his sensei. He stepped into the circle of spread ash and blood _(their own and the scratches are still itching on his fingertips and thigh, the back of his hand and his ear)_, near the place on the forest floor where he had re-sealed the Kyuubi days _(hours, years)_ before. The soft blades of grass and dappled shade where he had died._

Everything went black.

His head was on the verge of exploding, he was sure…the pressure building, pregnant with the recent memories of Minato and the memories of his life before, and they intermingled and broke as waves against his consciousness.

And then it was…

all…

gone…

* * *

Days passed as clipped moments and faint dialogue, and Kakashi was truly aware of neither.

On the third day, his eyes were unbound.

On the fifth, he began mumbling under his breath, embarrassing Iruka who eventually enforced restrictions on Naruto and Sakura's visits when Kakashi seemed especially talkative.

Tsunade fled his bedside once, throwing herself against the newly returned Jiraiya's chest, sobbing, and it took the old hermit two hours and plenty of sake to convince her to tell him what had been so upsetting. And then, he too staggered under the weight of Kakashi's unconscious confessions.

On the eighth day, Kakashi awoke to a shaft of sunlight prodding at his natural eye and a dull ache in Obito's. It was afternoon, if he was any judge, and the brightness outdoors reflected off the surfaces of the stark white hospital room, magnifying its bleak sterility.

_…I'm alive…_ Not a triumphant declaration, but a quiet statement of acceptance. If the days with Minato were dreamlike, Kakashi felt he had only fallen farther, not returned to reality. And it hurt. His entire body ached. His chest burned with unspent emotion. The memory _(dream)_ of Minato's head resting _just there_ above the ache was no comfort. He swore he could still smell the man on his skin. It was all too much and he just—

A noise at the door preceded Iruka's hand on the knob, the scarred face, and a smile when he saw that Kakashi's eye was open, if bleary. "Oh Kami-sama! It's about time!" The chuunin backed out of the room and Naruto entered seconds later, bounding over to Kakashi's bedside. A tear slipped down Kakashi's cheek and he mentally comforted Obito.

The blond was Kushina-incarnate, in the guise of Minato…he was…the same as always.

"Kaka-sensei, are you okay?"

Kakashi's hands were shaking. He grasped the blanket to mask the weakness and smiled behind the sheet covering his face. Iruka's thoughtfulness, no doubt…although, now…it felt wrong. In front of Naruto, Kakashi had the maddening urge to brush the cloth aside and for once be honest with the son of his…of Minato. Naruto was the last remaining evidence of a family that could have been.

_And why not?_ A slight shift of the neck and a rustling of bedclothes.

He grinned when the boy's eyes widened impossibly and his exclamation—"NANI!? Kaka-sensei, here, let me…"—was followed by a hasty attempt to replace the sheet without looking. Or, at least, without getting caught taking a peek.

"Naruto…" His dry throat protested further attempts at speech, but Naruto understood and brought a glass of water from the pitcher. He peered at the sheet for a moment before meeting Kakashi's eye, again, astonished when his sensei nodded.

Gently, he lowered the sheet and helped Kakashi drink, a soft smile on the boy's sunny face as he openly examined the newly exposed skin. Worry lines and tear stains marked Naruto's face. They were the details Kakashi chose to focus on _(not blond hair, blue eyes, lightly tan skin)_ when staring back at his student. He wondered how long he had been unconscious, but didn't ask.

"Naruto…please…tell Tsunade…then, lock the door. We…" Kakashi slumped against the pillow behind him, abandoning all pretense of strength or authority when his voice simply refused to sound less defeated than he felt. "Need to talk."

Naruto left and returned in moments. He had somehow managed to convince Tsunade to postpone her exam, though she did lean into the room to check on the reclining jounin, a knowing, motherly gleam in her eye before she retreated to the corridors once more. When the boy was seated at Kakashi's bedside, perched on the creaky plastic chair that appeared to have seen better days, he wore a serious, determined expression. Though heavy with curiosity, it was shot through with fear and expectation and reluctance seemed to be suppressing the usual vivacity of his eyes as Naruto sat helplessly waiting.

Kakashi knew, of course: he wasn't supposed to be alive. And if Kakashi was alive, what did it mean for Naruto?

"The jutsu worked." Kakashi took a sip of water and watched the boy's eyes, not really seeing him at all. "First, I want to tell you that I'm proud of you. I'm not sure if I have ever told you so. It is true; you've grown up well. I'm happy to call you my teammate and my friend."

A well-practiced, empty smirk surfaced on Naruto's face and he asked in a voice just as empty, "And your Hokage."

"Yes…" Kakashi's indulgent twist of the lips wasn't really something to qualify as a smile, but close. "And, one day, _Hokage-sama_. Your mother…she would have been proud of you, too."

Kakashi flinched when Naruto did, and then there was silence.

An incredulous, doubtful whisper finally found its voice, "You knew my…my mother?" Kakashi nodded slightly. He needed to do this slowly. For Naruto and himself. "What was she like? I bet…she was beautiful. She always is when I imagine her, like mothers are supposed to be beautiful, you know? And kind. And gentle, and maybe she liked to smile a lot, and—"

"Yes." Naruto stopped his nervous rambling to stare at his teacher. "She was all of those things, and funny--a prankster, even—and happy. Most of all, Naruto, your Mother loved you very much."

Naruto's eyes, sometimes innocent, currently shrewd and possibly…wise…narrowed and focused on Kakashi's. "You've never told me about her. Why? No one's ever…why?!" His voice rose nearly to a yell, but a sharp look from Kakashi quieted the outburst as quickly as it had arisen.

"Rules. Which I plan to fully break now. You can report me to Tsunade-sama later, of course, but the door is locked, and it is your choice whether we continue this conversation or not."

Silence.

Eventually, "S-sensei…if you knew my mother…" He glanced up at Kakashi first to confirm what he already suspected and the jounin nodded again, gravely, and even Naruto didn't miss the hint of _something_ stirring behind his steely eye. "Tell me about him, please?"

Kakashi bowed his head, as much to look away from the blond as to clear his mind. When he spoke, it was with a dry, rasping voice, as if he were choking on the memories. "Your father's name was Namikaze Minato. He was a hero of the village. He was also my sensei. He was…" _(beautiful, amazing, everything)_

Allowing himself a glance at Naruto, he saw that recognition shone in the boy's eyes as he started to make the connections in his mind, slowly at first, but gathering more speed as he worked through the facts. Kakashi watched it grow from a faint possibility to a certainty before continuing. "He was also known as the Yellow Flash and—"

"Yondaime Hokage," Naruto interrupted in an awed whisper. Kakashi's head dipped down in affirmation. "My father…Kaka-sensei…tell me…say it so I can hear it out loud from someone else."

"It's true. Yondaime-sama was your father, Naruto. He invented your Rasengan and trained under Jiraiya. He taught me and my teammates. Your father. And he loved you as much as she did."

Kakashi braced himself for the anger he saw flare behind Naruto's eyes, quickly replacing the shine with fury. The Kyuubi recognized the man, as well, but he was blocked behind a now permanent seal. It receded just as suddenly, and Naruto was left shaking his head, a small smile on his lips. "Thank you. I…" He grinned, allowing it to touch his eyes almost completely. "I can't wait to tell Sasuke!"

Silence, once more. The name was taboo, but that wasn't what gave Kakashi pause.

He supposed he couldn't put it off any longer; there was no choice but to continue. Otherwise, why had he left Minato behind?

_"I love you, Kakashi, I've always loved you and I'm sorry, this is...this is how it has to be. My son..."_

"...is precious to many people, Minato. I know."

With furrowed brows, Kakashi took a deep breath and muttered, "About Sasuke…" Naruto's attention was at once fully, almost painfully, focused on Kakashi and a tingling shiver made the hair on the Copy-nin's neck stand on end.

"What about…Sasuke?" It could have been mistaken for a growl.

"I have reason to believe he is in danger."

"Wha-?!" Naruto jumped up off the chair and headed for the door. "C'mon, sensei! We have to go! We have to—" He paused only when he finally noticed Kakashi's eye slide closed and his hands fold neatly into his lap. "Sensei…"

"I believe _you_ may be the danger, Naruto. It seems you've been…chosen by fate, we'll say, to kill him."

Silence. Incredulous staring and harsh breathing as the boy tried to make sense of his sensei's ridiculous statement, molding it to fit into his own version of reality.

"But, sensei, I could never kill Sasuke! I'm going to bring him back to the village, not kill him. Why would you think that?"

"I don't think I can explain it all," Kakashi never opened his eye, "But I'll tell you what I know."

He skirted around most of the details, only touching on the cause of his presence in the strange world and the few minutes he had seen Sasuke and Iruka. Naruto took the possibility of Iruka's death as seriously as Sasuke's and the boy's face grew stony and unreadable as the telling went on. Eventually, he stood without preamble and walked away, muttering, "I understand, sensei...thank you," before slipping out the door.

When he was alone, Kakashi rolled over onto his side and pulled his knees up to his chest. His pillow was soon damp, a wet puddle spreading as hot tears flowed from Obito's eye and down Kakashi's cheek. His own tears wouldn't come. It had been too easy and empty, and he missed Minato. He missed him, and for a while, until he dropped off to sleep, Kakashi let himself be fifteen years old _(14, 13, 12, too long ago)_ and clung to the image of his sleeping sensei in the dark, dark bedroom of the old house. He shuddered when everything that had built up finally found release in a cracking, choked sob.

* * *

_Kakashi stepped into the circle and Minato took a breath. His last. His student, lover, and friend disappeared in a shock of white lightning, and Namikaze Minato fell to the ground. Blond hair shriveled to gray. Smooth, tan skin withered and fell away. All that was essentially _Minato_ was destroyed. The price of sending Kakashi back to his son: to give himself over to the shinigami, let himself be devoured. His contract, the defective jutsu, expired fifteen years after its inception. And Kakashi's death had renewed the contract. Minato was free to go, to rejoin the stream of life, but instead he traded one soul for the other. His core existence for Kakashi's continued life. He wasn't even aware that it had been a success. He was already gone._

* * *

Two weeks later, Kakashi was finally released from the hospital. It was a day to celebrate, so Naruto and a few of his friends met both of his sensei at the ramen stand and, miraculously, treated both to ramen. All talk of Sasuke and Iruka's deaths had been firmly pushed from his mind. He chatted with Shikamaru, occasionally smiling at Iruka's admonitions that he should consider something other than pork ramen once in a while and offering up that he _did_ occasionally eat shrimp, as well. Iruka frowned, but it was at just that moment that Akamaru jumped up to put his front paws on the counter and started to growl, hackles raised in anger or fear, and Kiba frantically tried to calm him. Another second passed and Naruto looked up, pricked by a sense of familiarity and chakra that resonated with his own. He caught the flurry of black hair amidst others as a streak crossed the village, unseen by most of the civilians and nin, alike. _Sasuke...you've come back..._

"Naruto!" Iruka yelled after his student who had already started to run, chakra pumping into his legs, as fast as he could after momentary ghost.

_"SASUKE!"_


	14. Chapter 11

_Warnings: Emotional angst, perhaps violent imagery._

* * *

**In this moment, I will not run. It is my place to stand.**

_"SASUKE!"_

On their third lap around the village, a black streak split off toward the training grounds, leaving his team to continue out of the gates and back toward Oto. There was no doubt that it was Sasuke, and Naruto followed with all of the force of his will and need to save a friend.

Kakashi and Iruka were not far behind, though not quite as driven, and also, somehow, understanding that there was little they could do. Naruto and Sasuke...it was inevitable. Still, as they reached the training grounds to find their students feinting and jabbing with kunai, circling one another like beasts, predators, it took all of their control to hold back. Interfering could make things worse, cost lives. As it was, the pair had never managed to kill one another before. There was no reason to believe they would be any more successful today.

"Sasuke-bastard! What are you _doing_ here!?" Naruto jumped back, dodging a well aimed slash, and the boys took up a constant litany of clanging and clashing attacks and insults and questions:

"Itachi."

"Here?!"

"Where else?"

"But…why risk coming...oh..."

"You're the last--a commodity--and Brother," he spat the word out as if something vile had found its way in between his teeth and tossed a handful of shuriken at Naruto, "has come to collect."

"Then you've come to protect me? I knew it! You--"

"Hardly. I am only after Itachi. You are merely..." But Naruto never heard what, exactly, he was. The Uchiha's _katon_ jutsu flared to life, surrounding him, singeing the tips of blond spikes but accomplishing little else.

Sasuke wasn't trying.

"Stay this time! Sasuke, stay here! You don't have to go." Naruto's kage bunshin disappeared one by one and, as always, only left Naruto and Sasuke alone on the training field. Nothing had changed. "We'll defeat Itachi together!"

Chidori flared to life, perched on the tips of Sasuke's fingers, his whole body pulsing with it, alive. And its mate, Rasengan, didn't hesitate, already forming in the palm of Naruto's hand. The boys leveled each other with a glare and took flight, the ever familiar feel of battle rushing through their veins. And Kakashi's heart tripped in its steady pounding as Iruka stepped away. He already knew what would happen--he had seen the results--and he watched as his worst fears played out before his eyes.

Iruka rushing toward his students, unable to think through the characteristic haze of _protectprotectprotect_ that made him unsuitable for field work but perfect for teaching.

Naruto aiming Rasengan to injure Sasuke, incapacitate, his whole being focused on keeping his friend from running again. _Even if I have to break his legs..._ He'd said it more than once over the years.

Sasuke's snarling, focused expression held nothing but hatred, and Kakashi was sure the trajectory would bring his own beautiful Chidori against Naruto's chest and through his heart.

Except he knew it wouldn't.

After Iruka, Naruto would never forgive Sasuke. He would chase him down, and Kakashi could almost _see_ the way Naruto's face would twist when he pushed his fisted chakra through Sasuke's flesh.

_Excuse me, sensei, you did say I'm in charge today? I want to try a new jutsu I'm working out right now..._ He hadn't created Chidori to be used like this. And against Rasengan...

_Sensei, which is the stronger jutsu? Rasengan or Chidori?_

_I hope never to learn, Kakashi. Those two...they should never meet on opposite sides of a battle._

He could only stand by, helpless, as Iruka stepped between his students, shoulders straight, feet flat on the ground. His back was to Sasuke, his chest the perfect target for Naruto's attack, and--

* * *

Naruto caught a movement that managed to draw his gaze from Sasuke's just long enough to recognize Iruka and something in his head clamored for attention. _Sasuke...I have reason to believe he is in danger. It seems you've been…chosen by fate...to kill him._ Kakashi's words flooded his head and Naruto kicked out, twisting in midair, planting his feet firmly onto Iruka's chest and pushing hard. The tan chuunin fell, crashing to the side and out of harm's way and Naruto took his place. A primal scream filled the training grounds as Rasengan was extinguished and Chidori plunged through Naruto's chest.

Sasuke's hand had missed his heart, exiting his back in a sick parody of that first time that seemed so long ago.

Coughing up blood and bile, eyes already starting to lose focus, Naruto leaned forward until his forehead was pressed against Sasuke's, brought close when he delivered the final blow. The light of Chidori bathed them both in blue and silver.

"I'm going to...bring you back one day..."

"Naruto," Sasuke let Naruto fall to the ground, "If anyone can, you will."

Then Sasuke followed in the direction of his team, only pausing a moment to graze callused fingertips across scarred cheeks. _You will._

* * *

Kakashi didn't bother berating himself for allowing his personal feelings to interfere with his training and instincts. For letting himself be caught off guard and frozen in place by fear and worry.

Everything had been for this moment.

He had never imagined it would be Naruto lying in pieces on the grass, eyes rolled back in his head as his body convulsed in small, trembling shivers. The gaping hole in his chest was already starting to heal, knitting the organs, muscles, and tissue back together. Again. And just like the first time, Kakashi gathered his sensei's son into his arms, shifted him to his back, and carried him silently toward the hospital. Along the way, he found himself wondering how long this would go on, how many times they would repeat this scene, but looking over his shoulder at the determination still engraved in Naruto's features, he thought, _Not much longer._

* * *

_A/N: My apologies for leaving out Iruka's fate. Unfortunately, with Naruto's wound, etc., Iruka was forgotten (technically, I had a grudge against him when I wrote this and subconsciously neglected him out of passive-aggressive acting out). To be honest, he's fine. He got saved, for whatever it's worth. _

_A quick thanks to everyone who has read this far. Last chapter to post in a few minutes. vj_


	15. Chapter 12

**_Twelve years later; Team 7 are 27 years old._ _Sasuke is back in the village, sort of. A war has been fought and has ended, and things are changing. Sort of introspective and more character oriented. Also, one of my favorite chapters.  
_**

_...acknowledgments to follow...thank you for reading..._

_Warnings: Emotional angst.  
_

* * *

**We few shall carry hope within our bloodied hands.**

The young man fidgeted and tugged at the hems of his new robes: white and red with contrasting flames along the bottom. A second set, to be worn as a coat, was draped across a nearby chair. He smiled nervously at his reflection in the mirror, tugging at lengthy blond hair and rustling fabric.

_**He**__ must have looked like this._

Flowers lined the walls and floors, stacked on tables and chairs, boxes and cabinets. Naruto could see them in the mirror behind him and it reminded him of when he'd first moved into his parents' house. Of the way Kakashi had insisted he must fill the house with flowers to alleviate the dust and smells of the past. A faint blush had peeked above the edge of Kakashi's mask and Naruto had decided not to ask.

_These_ were flowers from his admirers, however. Mostly just bored civilian housewives with too much time on their hands. A large boon for Ino and her shop, no doubt. He spared a moment for Chouji, wondering how Ino was getting along without him, and then he sighed and started to remove the new clothes and set them aside. Tomorrow, he would wear them again and meet Kakashi as equals before the village, transferring leadership from one Hokage to the next. It was for show, of course…but civilians and shinobi alike enjoyed a good show.

Draping the robes over the coat on the back of the chair, Naruto sighed and slid into faded jeans and a T-shirt. It was his last day before donning the title of Hokage, and for a little while, he desperately wanted to be just plain _Naruto_. Smirking at the portrait of his father that hung in the entry hall, Naruto bowed slightly and stepped out into the sun.

_It's really a beautiful day for ramen._

* * *

"Are you sure he's ready, Kakashi?"

Rokudaime grunted the affirmative and deftly maneuvered another bite of ramen into his mouth without showing his face. It was a habit that persisted long after the others had finally given up trying to look, after Naruto told them it was nothing special, just a few scars and who didn't have those? Kakashi chuckled as he ate, only half-listening to the conversations around him, until there was a lull and then a sudden shout of, "Hey, Naruto!"

"Sakura-chan, hi. How ya doin' today? Lee." Naruto nodded to Sakura's husband who smiled back without restraint but didn't go into one of his Gai impersonations. Naruto almost missed the gleeful declarations, and he wondered how so much could change so quickly.

It hadn't, really, he thought, taking a seat and not even needing to place an order. Ayame-san was already dishing out his favorite. Things had been slow to change, only Naruto had been slower, spending years researching and rewriting and experimenting, taking ANBU missions in between, rarely at ease to even take a meal with Iruka. While his friends had been getting married, having children, accepting genin teams, Naruto had been busy trying to save, first, Kakashi, and then Sasuke. He had become the village expert on the effects of jutsu on the inner workings of the human mind in his search to find something...a jutsu...some kind of perfect fix-all that would…

Naruto sighed and began to eat, smiling and nodding when appropriate. Hinata's pregnancy was going well, the twins would be the first of the Hyuuga to be rid of the trappings of main house and branch house. Apparently Temari and Shikamaru were coming to the ceremony in the morning and bringing the Kazekage along with them. It would be nice to see Gaara, to sit in the quiet of the Hokage's office and drink tea together and not have to speak. They never had to speak; unlike his friends. Sakura wrapped an arm around Naruto's shoulder, and asked if he thought perhaps _Sasuke-kun_ would be well enough to come outside for the ceremony and he nearly snapped at her, calling back his own temper and that of the fox before making any response. A simple shake of his head--_No._--and he was standing, having finished his bowl and lost all desire to remain. Sakura apologized, but he'd been hearing her _apologies_ for most of his life and they were no longer effective when her method was _speak first, apologize after_.

_The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes._ He thought of Sasuke and decided it was a useless saying corrupt with false hope. _If only things could have stayed the same._

"I'm sorry, I need to go. It was good, you know, seeing you guys. I can't believe it's finally happening. My dream…was always to become Hokage, and I'm so happy you're here to see it!" The conviction wasn't there. He'd lost it more than a year ago, when he finally understood that he couldn't force Kakashi to be happy and that he couldn't bring Sasuke back for real, no matter how much power or skill he possessed. What was all of it worth, the training and research, if in the end, it meant nothing? "Thanks, Ayame-chan. After all these years, still your number one customer."

He gave a small bow to the assembled group and walked off alone, first to the training grounds, and then to the memorial stone. He traced his fingers along his father's name, along the Third's, the Fifth's. Three generations of Hokage who had directly influenced his life. The Sannin were gone. Most of his father's and Kakashi's generations, as well, casualties of the war, or the peace keeping missions that followed. _How can I live up to your expectations? I've always pretended, tried to believe, but how can __**I**__ be compared to __**you**__?_

_Can someone who can't even save one of his friends become Hokage?_ His own words from years before. "I still don't know. Or I'm afraid I do."

He let his head rest against the stone and spent the afternoon there amongst the names of heroes who had fallen doing their duty, whispering vows to make them proud, particularly the Fourth, and to protect the village and people for which they had died.

* * *

Naruto turned another page in his book and glanced out at the weather. It wasn't raining yet, but the thunder and lightning outside the open window were impressive. He would have to close it soon, he supposed, though he wouldn't lock it. Never locked it.

He was half-way through a paragraph on using permanent genjutsu to treat mental illnesses when he felt a ripple at the edge of his senses and turned his eyes to the window just in time to see Kakashi climbing through, already pulling down his mask. A bad sign, really, as Naruto wasn't sure he wanted to talk about anything of consequence that night, but the mask's removal could only mean his sensei planned on having some kind of honest conversation.

Kakashi was stuck in the limbo somewhere between _sensei_ and _father_ and _friend_ and _leader_. The mask was off, so he settled for _friend_ and muttered a slightly barbed, "_You_ left in a hurry."

Naruto countered, "_You_ were awfully silent."

"You didn't come right home."

If Naruto could hear the worry in his sensei's voice, he chose to ignore it. Crossing his arms, he sighed. "You didn't come to the stone."

"I didn't feel like remembering. It's not time to dwell on the past when the future is closing in on us."

Eying the picture frame Kakashi was clutching in his hand, so far still turned down and away from him—_Has he been holding it the whole time?_—Naruto highly doubted this was something the man believed. "Hm. You shouldn't lie, _Hokage-__**sempai**_." He twisted the honorific with a cool chuckle.

Shooting him a bland look that clearly stated 'you're no fun,' as if there were a larger lesson and reward to which he was building, a comment that would have finished it all with a grand finale of pseudo-wisdom…instead, Kakashi shoved the frame into Naruto's hands.

He knew the people in the photo, though he had never seen all three, _four_, together in one shot, and he stared down at them, a small smile forming on his lips. Holding the picture frame against his cheek, Naruto let his eyes slide closed and whispered, "Thank you," though it was nearly lost in the effort to control his voice.

More steadily a few moments later, he asked, "You really loved him, didn't you?"

Kakashi eyed his student. He hadn't been prepared to have that discussion just yet. _Never intended to._

"It's okay. I've had a few years to get used to the idea since I figured it out." Naruto let his hands and the picture frame rest in his lap, wistfully gazing at the people in the photo. The roundness of the woman's belly...Kakashi hadn't needed to point out Naruto, himself. A lone drop fell on the woman's…on his mother's face, and he wiped at it with a finger, smearing wet, salty liquid around the glass. Kakashi's young cheek pressed against his mother's belly was somehow comforting.

Naruto's eyes were veiled by a fringe of shaggy blond hair that resembled almost too closely the Yondaime. "Did he know?"

"No…" Reconsidering, Kakashi muttered, "Not until..." He frowned a little; these were thoughts he usually avoided.

The blond nodded gently, understanding eyes watching his sensei. "And did he love you in return?"

Kakashi nodded slowly.

"I see." Naruto rubbed his chin, ignoring Kakashi's arched, questioning brow to ask, "And Mother?"

"He loved us both, in different ways. The four of us…were going to be a family--"

Naruto's hand on Kakashi's stopped him from saying more. "We are, sensei." He withdrew quickly, fingers twitchy and anxious, tugging at the edge of his shirt.

"What's bothering you?" The younger man was nervous, but not about the ceremony taking place the next morning. When no answer seemed forthcoming, he added, "_You see_?"

Naruto smiled sadly. "Sasuke."

_Oh._ Kakashi understood, as well. He had entertained the idea that Naruto was in love with Sasuke, on nights when he lay awake in bed wondering why he was letting the younger man work himself to death. The Uchiha was unreachable, lost to Naruto though he was right there in the village, and a familiar nausea rose and fell within the breadth of a few seconds pause.

"How is he?"

The fidgeting worsened--_so very like __**him**_--Naruto's eyes set into a distant stare out of the window, toward the hospital. Toward the man being held in one of the lower level padded cells. "The same. As well as can be expected." It wasn't much consolation to either. "There are times when he knows me and he's sorry. He begs me to return him to Konoha. Sometimes he thinks he's caught in Itachi's genjutsu again and he screams and..."

A hand rested on Naruto's shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

"And then, there are days in between when…when he's just so...and we're almost… What am I doing?"

Kakashi sighed and looked away. He'd often asked himself the same over the years, going through motions and rituals that would have betrayed the true nature of his thoughts to someone with a knowing eye.

Something Jiraiya had said ten years before came to mind. They had been standing off to the side at Tsunade's funeral, quietly observing the other mourners, when his friend had uttered the words that now rose unbidden to Kakashi's lips: "Sometimes, you have to make do with whatever you can get. Nothing is certain in shinobi life, and you never know when the person you care for the most will disappear before your eyes." Naruto nodded, and the pair sat in silence. It seemed they spent more time sitting quietly together than speaking lately, but it was okay. They were comfortable with that.

Eventually, they stood and Kakashi bade Naruto goodnight and good luck and finalized their plan to meet in the morning before Kakashi's leadership was transferred to his student.

"He would have been proud of you, Naruto. Never doubt that." Kakashi wasn't sure whether he meant Minato or Sasuke.

The study window knew the feel of the last Hatake's feet better than the steps at the front door. The window had remained always open or unlocked, regardless of which blond occupied the house, one of many parallels that Kakashi simply refused to dwell on. He waved over his shoulder before pulling up his mask to cover his weary frown. He would return to _Minato's_ office one last time, sit in _Minato's_ chair at _Minato's_ desk, before relinquishing it all to _Minato's_ son.

_Their_ son—Kushina's, Minato's, and Kakashi's.

Some part of him wished he could then return to _Minato's_ house and slip into _Minato's_ bed, press against the warmth of _Minato's_ back, and just...hold him. It was on nights like this that he knew to stay far away from Naruto, though he wouldn't admit why. He could never consciously accept such pseudo-emotion and so, unconsciously, he pushed it away entirely.

Traveling through the village one final time, he saw the signs everywhere: the younger generation was no longer so young and this was no longer the village he had always known. Naruto was twenty-seven years old, a fact that often left Kakashi feeling ancient and without purpose in a world that was quickly replacing the old with the new.

It was only a matter of time before all signs of Minato--save for the monument--were wiped from the village altogether, overshadowed by the reign of his son, and then...he would only exist, truly, for one person. The warm spot amidst loneliness in what were the remains of a tired heart.

_- end -_

* * *

_**That children of a newer day might remember, and avoid our fate.**_

* * *

_I hope it wasn't...disappointing. I knew it would be anticlimactic and bittersweet at the end. But, Kakashi followed Minato's last order after all; he lived. I'm happy with it, as a whole, so I suppose I should accept that and hope you guys like it as well._

_This series was finished thanks to bimbomushi-sensei's prodding, my first beta's excellent work, Moiya's discussions and read-throughs, and Fuyu's excellent critique and advice and way of seeing what I meant, but that I wasn't quite saying it. You guys...thanks. And thanks everyone for reading it._

_Finally, I'm considering a follow-up fic to cover the twelve years in between chapters 11 and 12. It would be NaruSasuNaru-centric, and shorter than HR, just 5-6 chapters, I'd guess. What do you guys think?_

_I do value your opinions and want to thank you all, again for reading and commenting._

_vj_


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